St Germaine's Academy
by irish-schmirish
Summary: Serena Higgins, the headmaster of St. Germaine's daughter, has enough of a time keeping herself in check after her dad tells her she needs to shape up. What she did not plan on was having to keep five boys, who are complete strangers to each other, in check.
1. Prologue: Acceptance

**Prologue: Acceptance**

"Niall James Horan," Niall's mother said sternly to him as he ate his large breakfast at a surprisingly slow pace due to the miserable mood he had been in almost all week, "this is an amazing opportunity for both you and this entire family. Your attitude better get better real quick, young man, or you'll be sent right back here from London to live with your grandmother."

Niall looked at the pile of boxes in the living room sadly before looking up at his mum. "I know it's a great opportunity, but my friends…my school…"

Mrs. Horan nodded in understanding as her expression softened and she sat down across from her son. "We got you the laptop so you could keep in contact with your friends. You'll be at St. Germaine's for two years before you graduate. Maybe you could come back home for university. We'll visit all the time. This is just such an important job for Dad."

"I know…"

"Besides," his mum continued with her usual lighter, happier tone, the tone Niall had mimicked ever since he could talk, "you've been at an all-boys school for years now. St. Germaine's is co-ed."

Niall, now more interested in his hash after his reassuring conversation with his mother, did not immediately catch on to what she was talking about at first. "So?'

"Maybe you'll meet a girl there."

Niall laughed a little. "You act like I've never had a girlfriend."

His mum shrugged with an air of indifference. "Not one that I've ever met."

Niall knew his mum was a bit touchy about that subject, and he did not want to get into it with her, just as he never wanted to get into his opinions on religion with both his parents. He decided his best option was to change the subject. "What time do we leave on Monday?"

"We're leaving at ten in the morning. You'll have about a week to settle in before you're off to school."

"I don't see why I have to go to boarding school…"

"Well…many of the men your dad will be working with either went there or have children or family members that go there, and they all say it's a magnificent school. It's one of the largest boarding schools in England, and people from all over the country go there."

"At least their Christmas holiday is longer than the one I used to have…"

On that note, Niall finished the last of his breakfast before going up to his room to find a text from his best friend, Sean, telling him to get outside before he got there and banged down the door himself. Niall laughed before throwing on a jersey and hat, racing downstairs to open the door as he heard the sound of Sean starting to knock loudly.

* * *

Zayn Malik kicked a crushed soda can in the center of the sidewalk out of the way as he walked toward his house from his cousin's house. He was still tired, having stayed up until four in the morning playing video games with his cousin. When he walked into his house, he found both his mum and his dad sitting at the kitchen table across from each other, both of them looking as if they had just been in deep discussion. Zayn was extremely confused until he saw the familiar torn open envelope and multiple folded up pages in the center of the table. He immediately opened his mouth to speak, but his mum cut him off.

"We've decided it's best for you to go," she said.

"That's what you said a month ago, but then you changed your mind," Zayn said quickly, knowing what she was going to say. "You know you do terrible when I'm away. And you need help with the girls."

"That's what I thought at the beginning of the summer, but your father has been reminding me for the past month that none of you are babies anymore."

"I'd only be there for two years! It's pointless!"

"Zayn," Mr. Malik said calmly, "you were the one who wanted to apply in the first place."

"That was a year ago."

"And it's a wonder you go in, with your record. Do you know how many boarding schools, especially ones of St. Germaine's grade, wouldn't give a resume with two expulsions on it a second glance?"

"A lot…" Zayn reluctantly muttered.

"It's something to be proud of," Mrs. Malik put in. "Your grades are excellent. In an environment like St. Germaine's, they could be even better."

"Now you sound like an advert for the school," Mr. Malik told her before turning back to Zayn. "Their drama department is extraordinary."

Zayn tried to look indifferent, but they really had his attention now. When he had first applied and been accepted, he had looked extensively into their drama department. "It's alright, I guess," he told them, "but I'm happy where I am. Besides, it's a lot of money."

Mr. and Mrs. Malik shared a secret smile as they glanced at each other before Mrs. Malik reached out to take the paper from the center of the table. "Yes, but we have enough and we would be willing to spend it. However…we may not need to…"

"What? What do you mean?"

"That's not your acceptance letter," Mr. Malik said, inclining his head.

Zayn looked between his two parents before staring at the papers in his mother's hands. "Then what is it?"

"It's a letter from the school. You were eligible for a scholarship, and they gave it to you."

Zayn licked his lips to hide a smile he felt forming and asked, "How much?"

"Half of your tuition for the next two years," his mum said with a broad smile, waving the papers a bit. "Still against attending St. Germaine's?"

* * *

"Swag," Martin commented dryly as Harry Styles turned away from his closet in a sweatshirt two sizes too big for him.

"Shut up," Harry snapped, tearing the sweatshirt off and tossing it into the hamper. "It's my stepdad's. My mum is going to put it through the dryer a few times to shrink it. She said it'll be something to 'keep me warm away from home'. I wish she'd just give me her Snuggie."

Martin wiggled his eyebrows cheekily. "So do I."

"Shut up, whore."

"Speaking of whores, think there will be any fine ladies at St. Germaine's?"

"Definitely," Harry responded as if he had been thinking that himself for a while. "But my mum already told me that she's not letting me back after Christmas holiday if my grades are bad. Or if I get a girl pregnant. Especially one she doesn't approve of."

"Your mum, she's got her priorities set real straight."

"Naturally. Where do you think I get it?"

"Are you playing football at St. Germaine's?"

"Probably not, they've got a really good team. Can we not talk about it anymore? It's enough that I have to leave in a week to go there anyway, the last thing I want to do is talk about it all the time."

"No problem. Why are you even going?"

"My stepdad's best friend went and loved it, and we finally had enough to let me go and be comfortable, so I applied." Harry kicked aside his bakery apron that was lying in the middle of his room. "I'm just going to miss getting free cakes for working at the bakery."

"Don't worry. We'll all pitch in and buy you one every week. You can share it with your roommate."

"Roommates."

"There's more than one?"

"The dorm I'm in is a triple. We're the only house with all triples; all the other houses have a mix of doubles and triples or quads."

"Alright. We'll get you a really big cake, then."

* * *

Louis Tomlinson grudgingly awoke to the sound of all four of his sisters chatting loudly in the kitchen as his mum cooked them all a big late morning breakfast. Louis rubbed his eyes as he tried to remember what day it was, something he hardly ever did on summer holiday. His head hurt with a slight hangover from the party at his friend's house the night before that had been held in celebration of Louis's going away to school in a little over a week. Louis was not happy to be leaving his old school, friends, and Doncaster at all, especially since it would only be for his last year until university, but he also knew his uncle had gone out on a limb to get him into St. Germaine's where he resided as headmaster. Headmaster Higgins…it worked.

"Mum!" Louis called, still lying down on the couch. "Can you bring me some eggs?"

"Louis!" his mum called back. "Can you bring me a motivated son?"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it."

Louis got up and walked into the kitchen, messing up his twin sisters' hair as he walked by them to the stove. He picked up a burning hot piece of bacon before dropping it onto the nearest plate and taking Phoebe's piece of toast from the toaster oven before she could, biting a large chunk out of it before she could protest. "Louis!" she shouted at him angrily, heading to the bread box to get another slice. Louis spread some jam on the remainder of the toast as Jo tipped some scrambled eggs onto his plate.

"Thanks, Mummy," Louis said through another large bite of toast. "Lottie, want to pour me some orange jui-"

"No," Lottie said sharply as she poured herself her own glass. She held the carton of orange juice out to Louis with a glass. "Louis's a big boy now. Louis can do big boy things."

"Lottie is a little female dog. Lottie acts like a little female dog."

"Lou…" Jo said with a warning look. "Don't talk to your sister like that. In fact, don't talk to women like that."

"Aw, she knows I'm kidding." Louis gave Lottie a one-armed hug before taking the carton in his hand the glass in his mouth and sitting at the breakfast table. "Are we going shopping for school clothes today?"

"We most certainly are." Jo squeezed Louis's chin. "Thank heavens you finally developed a knack for shopping. I was beginning to lose all hope."

"Such a shame that would have been."

"We don't need to get you too much, though, since you'll have a uniform."

"Will you have to wear your uniform even on the weekends?" Daisy asked curiously.

Louis just stared at her for a second before slowly saying, "No…"

"Louis!" Lottie shrieked, smacking him across the shoulder with the back of her hand. "She doesn't know!"

Louis stuck his tongue out at Lottie. "Meh, meh."

When Jo was not looking, Lottie stuck her middle finger up at Louis, making him clap a hand over his mouth as he started to laugh. "I'm going to miss my boo bear so much," Jo remarked as she poured herself a mug of coffee.

This time it was the girls' turn to cover their mouths as they erupted into fits of giggles. "Mom," Louis said indignantly, "don't call me boo bear!"

"I birthed you, I can call you whatever I please."

* * *

"All set for another year at St. Germaine's?" Andy asked Liam Payne over the computer screen as the best friends Skyped.

"Yeah, I've got everything I need," Liam told him. "Did you pack up your dancing shoes, ballerina?"

"I most certainly did. I heard there's a massive amount of new people coming in this year."

Liam shrugged. "Maybe we'll get some new people on the track team."

"We? Excuse me, but I think you're forgetting that I have been protesting organized school sports since I began at St. Germaine's all those years ago with you."

"Yeah, I almost forget you and Maz consider running around making dance videos on school grounds your extracurricular activity."

"Haters gonna hate. At least I'm not doing illegal things and shagging up in the bathroom."

"You better not be!"

"So, do you think any of the new girls will be-"

"Don't objectify them already!"

Andy rolled his eyes. "Your worse than fathers, you know that? I seriously feel bad if you ever have a daughter. Her boyfriend will have to get through a fire-breathing dragon before you allow him to go with her."

"Ruth's boyfriend didn't have too much trouble with it when I made him do it."

"You're kidding me, right?"

"Yeah, I just watched a Friends marathon with him one afternoon as a way of approval. He's actually quite a nice guy."

"You think everyone is a nice guy. If you got mugged, you would hug the mugger after he was done, even if you were dead."

"That would be very gruesome."

"It would be, but all the girls who saw it would flip shit over how adorable you are. That's all I hear from the girls who know you. 'Where's Liam? Oh, he's so sweet! He's so adorable! Oh! Oh! Oh! Clothes! Pretty birdy!'."

Liam laughed. "I was raised well. My mummy and daddy are very proud of me."

"I'm pretty sure that's because you're currently on a reserve list for the next Olympics, not because you are too nice."

* * *

"Dad," I said loudly. "Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Father. Father. Paul. Paul. Paul Higgins!"

"What?" my dad asked me calmly as he finally looked up from his newspaper.

"Can I have a ride to the cinema?" I asked him sweetly, batting my eyelashes. It always worked when I needed something from him since I was the only daughter out of four children. "It's the last time I'll see Heather and Isabel before we go back to St. Germaine's."

"Oh, alright. And we're picking up Louis on our way to St. Germaine's on Sunday."

"Aren't you the sweetest brother? Bringing your sister's child to school and everything." I looked pointedly at my brother Emanuel, who was just about to enter his first year at university. "Learn something."

"Learn something," he mimicked in his best attempt at my voice before turning back to the television. "Is Lou playing on the school football team?"

"He better be," my dad remarked. "They don't call him the Tommo for nothing."

"I'm sure he'll be brilliant at school, now can I have a ride?" I asked.

"Don't you have dance class?"

"That's not until tonight. It's not even noon yet."

"And you're up?"

"Haha, very funny dad. Heather and Isabel are probably already raining."

"Just a moment," my dad said as he started to stand up. "Is it raining?"

"When is it not raining here?"

"When the sun is shining," Emanuel put in dryly. "Bah, dun, tss."

"You've had better."

"It's a slow day, don't judge."

"Too late."

"Are you ready?" my dad asked me, walking back in from the kitchen with his keys in his hand. "I could just meet up with Heather and Isabel myself. I'm sure I could freak out over whoever takes their shirt off in this movie as much as you would."

"Haha, very funny, but no one takes their shirt off." Who was I kidding? We were going to see Magic Mike; _everyone_ took their shirt off.

"Well, we better be off, then, seeing as it's a miracle you're going to see a movie where every male onscreen stays fully clothed the whole time. Emanuel, want me to pick up some food on the way home? We've got nothing in the kitchen."

"Yeah, just a little something, like a chicken."

My dad and I exchanged a look. "Alright. See you when we get back."

"Bye, Manny!" I called back as we started down the stairs out the door.

"Hey, one more question! Is that Liam kid going to be on the track team?"

I turned around to speak through the open door as my dad went to the car. "Yeah, why?"

"I just heard he was put on a list for the Olympics."

"Yeah, I knew about that awhile ago. Keep up with the latest gossip, Emanuel." I shut the door tight before running to jump into the car.

"So, Serena…" my dad began after clearing his throat quite awkwardly. "We need to have a little talk."

"About…?"

"This is your second to last year before you leave for university. Your marks are fantastic, and you have dance team and cheerleading under your belt for extracurricular activities. However…teacher references are a very important part of applications."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's not you individually that some of the teachers have a bit of a beef with, but it's you and the people you spend time with. I know you enjoy fooling around a lot with Andy and Maz and-"

"They're my best friends."

"Yes, I understand that, and I'm not asking you to stop being friends with them. I just think it might be good for you all to calm down a bit. I've seen just a few too many videos of you, Andy, and Maz dancing on the school roof and the grounds."

"It's fun! And everyone loves when we do that! We're good!"

"I understand that, it's just a precaution. Some of the teachers and staff are beginning to become annoyed, and I got a couple calls from parents asking if we were supplying enough homework."

I wanted to say "To hell with them!", but instead I folded my arms and slid down in my seat as we continued down the road. If my dad thought he could get my friends and I to stop doing what we love, he better have another think coming.


	2. Chapter 1

"Bloody hell," Niall murmured as he rolled his suitcase into the dorm he was sharing with another boy named Ulysses Baile.

Niall threw his bag on the bottom bunk as he stared at the two bureaus and desks at opposite ends of the room. On top of each bureau was a large stand up mirror, and to the left in the short hallway-like thing when you walked into the room there was a large closet. The three small windows that were lined in a row just a few inches above the top bunk were opened to air the room out even though the air conditioning was already blasting. Niall preferred the fresh air over the manufactured cold air so he went over to the control across from the closet and shut the air conditioning off completely.

"I take it you're Niall?"

Niall jumped, then laughed and turned to face the boy who had just spoken. He was standing in the doorway with as many bags as Niall had just carried in, plus one with a lacrosse stick poking out of it. Niall stepped back into the open part of the room to let the boy through.

"Yeah. I take it you're Ulysses?" Niall finally responded.

"Yup. But no one calls me that. I go by Buck. It's a long story that involves a horse that I've told too many times."

"Well, Buck, it's nice to meet you."

"You, too. Are you going to take the bottom bunk?"

"I really don't care."

"I think it would be best if I took it. I wake up early to go down to the gym in the morning, and I wouldn't want to wake you up when I'm getting down."

Niall laughed again. "Good call."

Niall heaved his bag up onto the top bunk as Buck put his things on the bottom. They both quickly decided on which bureau, desk, and half of the closet they were going to use. In what seemed like no time, both of them were unpacked. Niall sat awkwardly at his desk chair for a few minutes as Buck struggled to stuff his lacrosse bag into his half of the closet and close the door. They had spoken a little while they were unpacking, but each of them had been pretty preoccupied in their own thoughts.

"So, you're new?" Buck asked Niall as he sat as his own desk and opened his laptop. "This is your first year?"

"Yeah," Niall responded. "I don't really know anyone, and they said only first year students have an orientation."

"I find that to be pure bullshit because at least five new students come into each grade every year. First dinner is usually hell for them if they don't know anyone. Just sit with me. You play lacrosse?"

"I'm more of a football man."

Buck nodded in understanding. "Ah, I see. My friend Geoffrey is the football goalie. Are you going for the school team?"

"I think I might. I mean, I'm good, but I don't know if I'm _that_ good."

"What part of Ireland are you from?"

"Mullingar."

"Never heard of it."

Niall smiled. "No one has."

Buck checked his watch quickly with a laugh. "We better go; dinner is about to start. The food here is great, by the way."

"Then I already love this place."

* * *

"He's from _Bradford_," Adamo, one of Zayn's roommates, said with a hint of admiration and pride in his voice as he introduced Zayn to the rest of the people at the dinner table. Adamo pointed out a boy with blond hair styled similar to Zayn's. "That's Graham, our other roommate. He was the one who had basically destroyed the room before either of us got there."

"At least I didn't set the place on fire," Graham said through a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

The rest of the table apparently found this hilarious and began to crack up as Zayn sat down uncertainly in the empty seat next to Adamo's. Truthfully, Zayn was not liking Adamo so far because he signified to Zayn everything a super-rich kid was, but the other boy, Graham, was not wearing top of the line sneakers or designer sunglasses, and looked pretty easy-going.

"Are you _really _from Bradford?" a girl with strawberry blond hair that even Zayn could tell was dyed.

"Yeah," Zayn said quietly, unsure whether she was asking that out of curiosity or as a way to mock him.

"Adamo just said that," Graham said. "It's really not that big of a deal."

"I've just heard things," the girl said defensively.

"I'm sure you've heard a lot of things," a girl with light brown hair in a braid muttered under her breath to the left of Zayn. Zayn could not help but smile a little bit.

"Do you play any sports?" Graham asked Zayn, catching the attention of everyone at the table just by asking a question. Why was everyone so interested with this guy?

"No, I'm not very good," Zayn admitted. "I like drama and stuff like that."

"Are you any good?" the girl with the fake red hair asked.

"Gretchen," Adamo said harshly. "What the hell?"

"I'm just curious! God!"

"Ignore her," a blond boy next to Graham and Gretchen said. "If you like drama, you should talk to Olive over there." The boy motioned toward the girl next to Zayn.

"You're in the drama department here?" Zayn asked her, a bit relieved to have found someone at the table he might actually have something in common with or even like since everyone else seemed so different from him.

"Yeah, I've dabbled in the arts here a bit," the girl said vaguely. "We're having auditions tomorrow for the fall term play while everyone else is trying out for sports. If you're any good, stop by."

"What play?"

"'Les Miserables'."

Zayn had heard of the play, but he had never seen it or done a scene in it. "I'll think about it."

As Zayn began to eat, Adamo and the blond boy got into an excited discussion about football tryouts. Zayn observed as other people walked into the cafeteria in groups of two or three, sometimes more. A boy with extremely curly hair made quite an entrance by tripping into the room, but his face was more red from laughing, like the boy he had walked in with, than embarrassment. Another group consisting of a short black boy, a very tall boy with highlights, and a girl with dirty blond hair in a ponytail made an entrance to a few comedic choruses of applause and shouting. A group of people with instruments that were sitting at a table together all began to play a song with a really good beat, the three students immediately picking up on the beat and starting to dance to it. When they were done, everyone applauded them, even the people at Zayn's table. Almost unintentionally, he put his fork down and began to applaud, too.

* * *

"Did you see that?" Harry choked out to his roommate Billy as they both took trays.

"You dumbass, how did you not see the lip?" Billy asked, still laughing himself. They both took deep breaths, trying to compose themselves, but cracked up again. "No, no!" Billy shouted as Harry was reaching out to take a slice of cake. "The dinner here is always great, but the dessert is terrible."

"Good thing I'm getting cakes sent weekly, then."

"You are? You're just getting better and better. Just remind me to never let you direct me if I'm blindfolded. Or walk behind you."

"I promise you, I usually walk very well!"

Everyone at the table they were walking by just stared at them, causing the two boys to erupt in laughter again. "Bloody hell, I'm glad I got you as a roommate and not some weird kid. We lucked out getting the only triple that wasn't full."

"Yeah, I can't exactly say the same. I got put with this weird kid who smells like garlic."

"My mum packed me garlic! I don't know why!"

"Hey, Billy!" a boy with dark brown hair called from a table near them. "Over here!"

"That's my best mate, Langston. Hey! Lang! You're going to love this guy!" Billy led Harry over to the table, which, to Harry's both surprise and pleasure, consisted of four girls and then the boy Langston. "Guys, this is my new roommate, Harry Styles. Harry, these are the twins you'll hear all about because they're too smart for their own good, Langston and Lauren, this is Molly, this is Justina, and this is Bernadette."

"Hey, I'm Harry," Harry said, immediately pulling up the empty seat between Langston and Lauren.

"You guys are going to love this guy, he's hysterical," Billy said to them.

"You definitely made quite an entrance back there," Lauren remarked, raising her eyebrows at Harry.

"You saw that?" Harry asked weakly.

"Oh, we _all _saw it," Molly said, smirking at him.

"Well, you see, I have this weird thing where whenever I'm around girls who are too pretty, I stumble and fall. I guess when I saw your table from the doorway, I just couldn't keep my feet in check."

All the girls giggled together, and Langston and Billy both looked at him with expressions of being impressed. "You could come in handy," Langston remarked, making Harry laugh. Here Harry had been, not wanting to even talk about coming to St. Germaine's, but now that he was there, he had the strangest feeling as if he was coming home after a very long vacation.

* * *

"What made you transfer in your last year before uni?" Darrell, Louis's dorm neighbor, asked him as they sat down at a table with a group of Darrell's friends he had just introduced Louis to.

"My sister just started at my old school," Louis said with just the right amount of punch for the table to start laughing. Louis caught the eye of the only girl at the table of the six of them besides himself and smiled a little when he realized he liked her laugh. "No, no, my uncle is the headmaster so he pulled in a favor and was able to get me a spot here. It will look really good on applications."

"Your uncle is Headmaster Higgins?" Darrell's friend Francis asked Louis incredulously.

"I just think of him as Uncle Paul…"

"So, you'll be able to get away with a lot?" Darrell asked, a mischievous gleam in his eye that made Louis smile and like him even more.

"I guess I'll be able to, yeah."

"Darrell, don't go dragging him into your little schemes," the girl said as Louis tried with all his might to remember what Darrell had told him her name was, but he had just said the names so fast…

"I'm not dragging him! I'm just going to force him against his own free will."

"Wait, who said I won't be the one dragging you all into my schemes? Hm?" Louis asked, raising his eyebrows.

"We're keeping him!" a boy named Jerry proclaimed, slapping his hand on the table with finality.

"Fine, but you're all going to have to split up the feeding between you, I'm too busy," the girl said even though she was smiling good-naturedly at Louis.

"I'm screwed then," Louis commented, smiling. He leaned forward. "I'm sorry, love, I didn't catch your name. Darrell here was racing his thoughts when he was talking."

"My name's Eleanor," she said, still smiling. "Eleanor Calder."

* * *

"ANDY!" Liam roared as he raced up the stairs of their house dormitory.

Liam managed to get on Andy's heels as he entered into their hallway, but Andy was quick enough to slip into their dorm and slam the door behind him before Liam could get so much as his pinky in. Andy put all his weight against the door, and try as Liam might, he just could not get the door to move.

"Give it back!" Liam shouted through the door, getting Andy's snickers as a response. "Andy, give it back!"

"But he has my name on his boot!" Andy reasoned calmly through the door.

"I don't care whose name he has, give it back!"

Andy opened the door a crack. "At least I don't have a Woody doll."

"My sister gave it to me to remind me of home!"

"Mhm, sure."

"Liam!" Maz's voice shouted from behind Liam before a body was hurled onto his back.

"Hello, Maz," Liam said, shrugging his friend off and trying again to open the door, but Andy was still leaning on it.

"What's going on now?" Serena asked, looking between Liam and the closed door.

"Andy stole my Woody doll!"

"Andy! You know how much that means to him!"

"La, la, la, I can't hear you!" Andy shouted.

"If you don't open the door, I'll sneak in through the window and break your legs," Liam threatened.

Andy opened the door instantaneously, the Woody doll still in his hand. "You wouldn't have dared."

"But I would have." Liam walked into their dorm, snatching the Woody doll out of Andy's hand and placing it carefully on a shelf on his desk.

"No, you wouldn't," Maz interjected. "You wouldn't break the legs of a fly."

"Of course not, I can't see their legs."

Maz rolled his eyes. "I didn't mean it like tha-…Never mind. Can we go down to dinner now? I'm starved. I haven't eaten since breakfast."

"Same," Serena said.

"I still need to finish unpacking," Liam said, looking at the suitcase on the bottom bunk that had not even been unzipped yet.

"I told you to unpack when we first got here, but did you listen to me? Noooo," Maz said, sounding extremely offensive.

"Liam, how many times have I told you to listen to your mum?" Andy asked sternly. "That's it, we're going to dinner. Don't you dare come down until you have totally unpacked, young man."

Liam smiled so much his eyes were almost completely closed, but you could still see them twinkling. "I'll sneak you up some ham," Serena whispered loud enough for Andy and Maz to hear her before she shut the door. Liam began to unpack, taking extra care with his sneakers and other track things because he knew this was going to be a big year for him, and he hoped it was not just for track, either.

* * *

When Andy, Maz, and I walked into the cafeteria, a few little spurts of applause and cheers broke out across the tables. We all smiled, looking at each other. Over the summer, Andy had posted the video of the three of us dancing up on the school roof. Admittedly, it had been one of our best videos, and everyone seemed to have liked it. A group of people in the school band who always ate together began to play the tune of the song, "Cheers (Drink to That)" by Rihanna that we had danced to in the finally video on the instruments they had with them. The three of us barely even glanced at each other before breaking out into the dance.

"Serena!" my best friend, Cher Lloyd, shouted as she ran across the cafeteria to crush me in a hug, interrupting our dance. When she stepped away, she looked me over. "Girl, you look fine."

I looked her over, mimicking her pursed lip expression. "Girl, you look even finer."

Cher flung an arm over my shoulder, directing me toward the table where there were three seats awaiting Andy, Maz, and me, and an extra one for Liam. "How was your holiday?"

"Good, but I missed my Cher!"

"I missed you, too! Life is so boring without you." Cher looked around before leaning toward me, lowering her voice. "Rooftop bonfire tonight?"

I was about to agree when I remembered what my dad had spoken to me about in the car just a week before. "I don't know, Cher…"

"Please! We always do a bonfire on the roof on the first day of school. Besides, there are three new people in our year, and I thought we'd give them a bit of an induction ceremony…"

"What kind of induction ceremony?"

"Well…I thought we'd wake them up, blindfold them, and lead them to the roof. Then, when they got close to the flames they'd freak out, and we'd pull their blindfolds off, and have them make s'mores."

"You're terrible!"

"I'm brilliant."

"How would we even manage that? We'd have to have a way into their dorms." Right after I said it I regretted it, because I knew Cher would suggest I just break into my dad's office and steal the keys to the rooms.

"Well, one of the new kids, Harry Styles, is in a dorm with Langston, and I've been friends with him since we dissected a frog together last year. Another one, Zayn Malik, is rooming with Olive's friend Graham. I know Olive from when I did a lot of the plays during my first couple years, so we're pretty close, and she could probably get Graham to let us into the room. And Niall Horan is rooming with Buck."

At the mention of Buck's name, my ears perked right up. "Buck? How is the lovely Mr. Cher Lloyd?"

Cher just laughed and twisted her earring. "He is very good."

"How many months now? With the summer holiday that's, what, nearly four?"

Cher's cheek got a little pink as she blushed, but she was smiling brightly. "Yeah, nearly four."

"I see. Well…if this induction idea means that much to you, I suppose we could do it…"

"Yes! This is going to be so fun, we're going to scare them so much, but they're going to love it!"

I shook my head. "If we get caught, this is on your ass, not mine."


	3. Chapter 2

Niall had just fallen asleep after he and Buck extensively talked about the possibility of Niall trying out for football, both of them agreeing in the end that it was worth a shot, and if he did not make it, so be it. Niall was easy-going enough not to take it too personally if he did not make the team; he knew some of the players were most likely the best of their age in the country. Still…if he did make the team, his parents would be so proud, it would be a great way to meet people before school started on Thursday, and maybe, just maybe, a certain special girl would find it especially impressive that he had made it onto a team with so many other great players…

"Niall."

The sudden noise of a door closing had pulled Niall into a half-asleep, half-awake dreaming state that caused him to see a piece of chicken in his mind's eye, but a small, blurry shadow was visible right in front of him. As Niall blinked a couple times and slowly opened his eyes, he realized the voice he had heard, a soft, whispering voice that clearly belonged to a girl, was repeating his name, and coming from the direction of the shadow he could see over the edge of his bed.

"Wha?" Niall suddenly cried as he sat up quickly, his thoughts finally coming together so he made sense of what was in front of him. "Who are you?"

"Just shhhh," the voice, which he was now certain belonged to a girl, said as Niall fumbled around the shelf along the wall next to his bed to find the small lamp he had set up there. Something reached up from the shadow, over the edge of the bunk, and grabbed Niall's hand. Niall could feel the hand was small, the fingers long and thin, with a couple small rings on them. "Everything will be fine?"

"Who are you?" Niall repeated in a more demanding voice than before. How was Buck still sound asleep, snoring like nothing was going on?

"I'm from the welcome committee. Here, just get down from the bunk, and we'll bring you to your welcome party."

Welcome party? Really, now? A small smile spread on Niall's face as he realized that this was most likely some sort of ritual, to prank the new kids in school. "Okay, I'll just turn the light on an-"

"No." The girl pulled Niall's hand back from the lamp again. "It'll ruin the surprise. Here."

Niall heard a little bit of shuffling and the sound of shoes on the rungs of the ladder of the bunk bed as the shadow moved up into Niall's bunk. For a second Niall was afraid the bunk would not be able to hold all the weight, but from the size of the shadow, Niall could tell the girl was petite and light. Niall became nervous for a second, unsure as to how far this "prank" was going to go, or why exactly he needed to keep the light off. Before he could ask questions, he felt a cloth pressed against his eyes and then the heat of the girl's body a few inches away as she leaned closer to tie the cloth behind Niall's eyes.

"Can you see anything?" she asked.

"I couldn't see anything before!" Niall said, looking straight ahead into nothing.

"Alright, I'll help you down."

"Where are we going?" Niall asked as he heard the girl begin to climb down the ladder.

"That's for me to know and you to find out, newbie."

The girl put her hand on Niall's forearm to guide him as he scooted along until he came to the ladder, carefully placing his foot on each rung as he stepped down. Buck, who was still snoring, rolled over to face the wall, making him somehow even more oblivious to what was going on. "He's such a cutie when he sleeps," the girl whispered, probably thinking Niall could not hear her. Niall felt a bit awkward after that until the girl took his hand again and led him forward, the sound of his dormitory door opening and closing the only way to tell him he had left him dorm. The girl gave very good directions as she steered him down what seemed like endless amounts of hallways, and millions of steps of stairs. For a moment, Niall wondered if she was going to lock him out of the building, or if she was going to leave him in a closet and make him find his way back to his dorm on his home. Niall had lost track of how many lefts, rights, and stairs he had taken since leaving the dorm. Suddenly, as the sound of a knob turning and a door opening met his ears, he was greeted by a gust of wind followed by coolness all around him.

"Are we on the roof?" Niall asked, but he gained no response from the girl as she led him out a few more steps until pushing him into a wooden chair. "What's going on?"

"Shhhh," the girl said again.

Niall listened intently, and he realized he could slightly hear a crackling noise, as if a fire was burning. After just a few moments more, he could feel some warmth spread over his body as heat waves rolled off something just a couple meters away from him. The nervousness rose up in him again. He had heard a couple stories before about people being bullied so badly people had burned them in fires, but the girl that had led Niall there did not sound like the type to be so cruel, and he did not recognize her voice from anywhere so he did not know her. How could she possibly have anything against him?

"Where are the other two?" the girl asked in a very hushed voice, from near where Niall could feel the heat coming from.

"Langston didn't want to be disturbed before tryouts tomorrow, and Graham apparently thought we were just going to get Zayn in trouble and he already likes the guy too much to let him get into trouble," another voice, also a girl's, said in reply with a small sigh.

"Trouble? Us? Never."

"It's not like trouble is our middle name or anything."

"No, of course not."

"So, what are we going to do to him?"

"Nothing to harm him," Niall said so suddenly he scared both himself and the girls.

"Do you still have Maz's mix for Want You Back on your phone?" the girl asked, which made Niall extremely confused. He could not think of a song he had ever heard of that was called "Want You Back".

"Yeah, why? What good is that going to do?"

"I think we should give dear Niall here something to remember. Play it, I wrote out some more lyrics to fill the extra time at the beginning."

Niall went to say something, but he was interrupted when he felt someone sit on his lap, their legs on either side of him. The person, he assumed it was the girl who had taken him from his room because of how light they were, grabbed the front of his muscle shirt to pull him closer. The girl was so close that Niall could feel her breath and, even though Niall could not see the girl or what she looked like, he wanted to close the gap. Niall could not focus on anything but the scent that was a mixture of her shampoo, lotion, and perfume; he could not think of anything but the fact that she was so close to him. He did not even hear the crackling of the fire or the music playing in the background as she spoke.

"This is something I just wrote over the summer," she said, "I hope you like it. Newbie."

"I'm sure I will," Niall managed to say quietly, but he had suddenly become quite shy, which is what usually only happened when he really liked a girl. How could he really like this girl? For all he knew, she was unattractive, and he had not even heard her talk enough to really figure out her personality.

Niall's thoughts vanished as the girl began to sing, her voice filling up every corner of his brain. The music she was singing to was clearly computer-generated, but her voice was so amazing, and so full of personality, he barely gave it any notice. For a moment, he almost forgot that she had said she was the one who wrote it.

"_Please, this ain't even jealousy,_

_She ain't got a thing on me,_

_Tryin' to rock them ugly jeans, jean, jeans,_

_You clearly didn't think this through,_

_If what I been told is true,_

_You'll be crawlin' back like boo-hoo-hoo_

_Remember all the things that you and I did first?_

_And now you're doing them with her,_

_Remember all the things that you and I did first?_

_You got me, got me like this_

_And now you're taking her to every restaurant_

_And everywhere we went_

_Come on_

_And now you're taking her to every restaurant_

_You got me, got me like this_

_Boy, you can say anything you wanna,_

_I don't give a shhh,_

_No one else can have ya,_

_I want you back,_

_I want you back,_

_Wa-want you, want you back,_

_I broke it off thinkin' you'd be crying,_

_Now I feel like shhh lookin' at you flying,_

_I want you back,_

_I want you back,_

_Wa-want you, want you back"_

Niall was speechless as the music faded out. The heat reaching Niall felt ten thousand times hotter as he realized his hands had moved up the girls legs, onto her side. He pulled them back quickly, trying to stammer out an apology, but the girl just laughed a cute, small laugh and stood up. Niall heard the sound of someone walking by him as the girl patted his shoulder.

"Have fun getting back to your dorm, Niall," the girl said, giggling a little at the end.

In an instant, the cloth was off Niall's eyes, and he was staring at a dying fire in an old metal trashcan about three meters in front of him. He heard a door closing behind him, and turned just in time to see the door leading out onto the roof slam shut before he could catch a glimpse of the girl who had sung, or even the girl who had been with her.

Niall quickly jumped up, running over to the door and yanking it open, but no one was on the short staircase that led downward. He ran down the steps, even though all hope was beginning to fade from his mind that he would catch up to them. Once he stepped into a corridor that had ten dorms going each way, he knew that there was no way he would be able to find them.

Niall, still unfamiliar with the dorm buildings and their layout, wandered around for nearly an hour before he managed to get back to his dorm, finding the door just slightly ajar, which he was thankful for because he just then realized he did not have his key. When he walked into the room, it was still pitch black and Buck was still snoring. However, Niall did not mind, his thoughts were completely occupied with trying to figure out who that girl had been…

"Good luck, lads!" Jerry called after Louis, Darrell, and Darrell's teammate for the past few years, Langston, as they walked toward the field where tryouts for football were being held. There had to be at least fifty people spread out over the bleachers, stretching and putting on their cleats. Louis was about to ask if they were all trying out for football when Darrell and Langston suddenly grabbed his arm, hauling him forward so quickly his feet nearly lifted off the ground. When Louis looked over his shoulder, he saw a herd of runners go buy as they warmed up on the track Louis and his friends had been passing across.

"Sorry about that," a boy with short brown hair and tan skin remarked breathlessly, as if he had been the one to get in someone else's way.

"No problem, mate!" Louis called, but he boy, who had been at the head of the group, was already too far away to hear.

"That's Liam Payne," Darrell told Louis, as if that was the greatest thing in the world. "He's on a list for the Olympics."

"Telling him all about our school's fine athletes?" a girl's voice, which Louis immediately recognized as Eleanor's, asked from behind the boys.

"Oh, hey, El," Langston said casually, stepping aside so she could walk between him and Louis.

"Hey, Lang, how's the new roommate?"

"Loads better than the one I had last year. He's a great guy, not going to lie."

"Not trying out for football?"

"Doesn't think he's good enough. I don't care, he's getting cake sent to him once a week." Langston suddenly ran off to put on his cleats, leaving Darrell and Louis alone to walk with Eleanor the rest of the way to the field.

"You're a football player?" Eleanor asked Louis with a mocking tone. "Are you any good?"

"I'm pretty good," Louis said, an equal amount of mocking in his voice. "Are you any good at anything?"

"I excel at watching other people exert massive amounts of energy to kick a ball across grass as if it's the hardest skill they've ever had to learn."

"Oh, sassy," Darrell commented. Darrell was about to continue when the coach suddenly called him over, asking him to partner up with a new student, a boy with bleach blond hair, for the drills.

"You are quite sassy," Louis remarked, looking at Eleanor approvingly. "I like that."

"Good," Eleanor said, smiling brightly and giving Louis a small wink.

Louis squinted a bit against the surprisingly bright sunlight to watch Eleanor walk away to the part of the bleacher where a few other girls she must have known were sitting, waiting for the practice to start. Louis was only snapped back into focus when the coach blew his whistle to let everyone know there was only five minutes until the official tryouts began.

"This kid was amazing," Langston said, still babbling on about his football tryout from the morning to Harry as they walked through the line for lunch. "He was a bit of a show-off, but the Tommo has got some serious skill."

"The what-o?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow as he examined a very sketchy looking orange.

"It's an old nickname. Hey! Molly! Billy!" Langston led the way over to the table where Billy and Molly were already sitting, both of them halfway through their lunches. Well, Billy was halfway through his lunch, but Molly must have already finished hers because her plate was wiped clean.

"How were tryouts?" Molly asked, actually looking interested.

"Amazing," Langston said. "I really think I secured a spot."

"Great, our dorm is going to smell horrible this year again," Billy said, giving Harry a cautionary look.

"We'll just hang him out a window to air out," Harry suggested, gaining a smile from Molly that made him smile himself.

"Did you try out for anything?" Harry asked Molly, even though Billy had begun to tell him about his track tryout.

"I have cheerleading tryouts this afternoon," Molly responded, also ignoring Billy, who now looked a bit disappointed. "Will you be there?"

"I'll certainly come to watch."

"I think you'll enjoy it. We have the best team in London, just ask anyone."

"Of course you do, you have the prettiest girls."

Molly blushed a little bit before leaving the table to go get ready for tryouts. Langston and Billy were both looking at Harry with slightly suspicious looks.

"You're quite the flatterer," Billy remarked, taking a thoughtful bite out of his piece of chicken.

"Just stay away from Lauren," Langston warned. "The last thing I want my twin sister to be is your bird."

"You do realize you have to actually open the door to get in, right?"

Zayn started, turning around to see Olive standing there behind him. He looked back over his shoulder uncertainly at the doors to the theater. She just rolled her eyes indifferently before pushing past him to open the door, holding it open behind her for him as if she knew he was going to go inside. He nodded as a silent thank you but he was still nervous; not sickeningly nervous, just nervous.

"You'll be fine," Olive assured him, but suddenly she had disappeared down the aisle, joining a group of girls near the stage who were waiting to audition.

The school drama director, Ernesto Flanchez, called everyone to attention with a loud whistle, which made Zayn a little relieved since he had just realized he knew absolutely no one in that theater except Olive. At Mr. Flanchez's request, everyone sat down in alphabetical order by their last name, which caused for a few minutes of chaos before Zayn was settled between a girl who looked a few years younger than him and a boy who seemed about his age.

"This is going to be a long speech," the boy informed Zayn as Mr. Flanchez began to speak. "Take out your iPod, he never says anything important."

Zayn just laughed quietly, keeping his head down so Mr. Flanchez would not see as he continued with his speech, which Zayn calculated to last almost fifteen minutes. Everyone had began hushed conversation or was playing with their phones or iPods, and Zayn was one of the only few who seemed to actually trying to be paying attention. The boy next to Zayn had been right, though, Mr. Flanchez never did say anything of importance, and it was all mostly just fluffy, pointless little anecdotes about his career as an off-Broadway actor.

"Told you," the boy next to Zayn remarked right when Mr. Flanchez finally sat in his chair at the bottom of the orchestra pit and called off the first name on the list he was holding.

Zayn was surprised to see the first person was Olive, whose last name was Abbott. Her audition consisted of the song "Seasons of Love" and "Imagine", and then a monologue from a Shakespeare play. Zayn listened closely the whole time she auditioned, surprised each time by how remarkable she was. Zayn had gathered she was not exceedingly loud, but she was also not very quiet, either. Out of all the people at the table he had eaten dinner, breakfast, and lunch at, she and Graham were the only two he could actually stand to talk to. Graham was open and funny; but Olive was a bit more mysterious, and she could be very dry, he had realized. Zayn, being the observant person he was, had also noticed that the only person Graham really had any respect for that he ate meals with was Olive, and vice versa.

"Thank you very much, Olive," Mr. Flanchez said, even though his voice was very flat, "I'm glad to have you back."

Suddenly, from the back of the auditorium, there was the sound of a sole person clapping their hands as if doing so was closing the hole in the O-zone layer. Zayn just assumed it was some kid goofing off, and he was more focused on the list Mr. Flanchez was holding in front of him, certain that, within the next hour, he would be up onstage for his audition. When the group of a few girls that Olive had been speaking to turned around to look at who had clapped, they all let out loud giggles that could hardly be contained, which sparked everyone's interest even more and even Zayn forgot about his nervousness and anxiety for a moment to turn around. He saw Graham, his face still shiny with sweat from his football tryout he had been at, standing in the open doorway of the auditorium clapping. He was also wearing a giant smirk, which meant he knew just how much he was embarrassing Olive by doing what he was.

"Every year, without fail," the boy next to Zayn said.

"He does this every year?" Zayn asked, turning forward again to see Olive running back to her seat with her head down, discreetly throwing a middle finger up to the back of the auditorium, which was just followed by some laughter.

"Yeah, he's one of my best mates. I feel bad, we usually eat together, but I didn't get here until this morning because of a delayed flight. Poor guy, had to eat with his dumbass roommate Adamo. He likes you, though." Zayn just looked at him, confused. "I saw your name on the list, and you're the only person I didn't recognize from before. Olive pointed you out earlier. I'm Jess." The boy held his hand out, so Zayn shook it with some reluctance. "Olive said Graham seems to like you, so you probably won't have to worry about being sentenced to Adamo's table for the rest of the year."

"Thank God," Zayn said, extremely relieved. "He's a little annoying prick. All during dinner yesterday he kept asking me if I'd ever committed any crimes. He thinks I'm some Bradford bad boy or something."

"He's too concerned with other people's lives…you haven't ever committed any crimes, though, right?"

"No, I just got expelled a couple of times."

"Haven't we all?"

Zayn looked at Jess, who was very tall but not very muscular, and became mildly impressed. "What'd you do?"

"Cheated once, got caught with cigarettes another, and got in a fight the third."

"And they still accepted you here?"

Jess scoffed. "They probably thought of me as their next big project."

Liam hopped out of the shower quickly, with the towel wrapped around his waist, and bustled over to his locker to pull on his clothes, doing everything at a speed twice his normal rate. He was just running out of the locker room as the boys from football practice stormed in, each of them wanting nothing but a cold shower from the intense tryout. Liam was going so fast he nearly forgot to apologize when he bumped shoulders with a blond boy whose face was bright red and sweaty.

Liam tore around the edge of the gym even faster than he had run all during his track tryouts that morning, and slammed through the door to the small lobby out in front of the gym. Once he got into the gym itself, he spotted Maz and Andy immediately because they were acting like idiots in the corner of the bleachers as Cher listened her iPod and ignored them, having become quite good at it over the years. Liam scanned the group of girls stretching in the center of the gym until he found Serena stretching with her two closest friends on the team, Molly and Lauren. He gave her a quick wave and smile for good luck before going off to join his friends.

"How were tryouts?" Cher asked Liam.

"Pretty good," Liam responded. "We nearly trampled a few football players when we were warming up, though."

"Do you think you made it?" Maz asked jokingly.

"Of course! I've been training all summer!"

"Yup, you and that one kidney of yours," Andy said, rolling his eyes. He turned his attention toward the center of the gym, where the girls were all on mats, learning a routine that most of the veterans already knew. "Wow, Serena's doing really well."

"You know she prefers dance team in the winter, though," Cher remarked. "Hey, Liam, did you meet that new boy in our year? Niall Horan? He's Buck's new roommate."

"No, I think I saw him though. Does he have blond hair?"

"Yeah."

"He tried out for football then."

"He wasn't one of the ones you almost trampled, right?"

"No, no, of course not. It was Langston and Darrell, and I think Darrell's new roommate."

"It might've been Langston's friend Harry Styles," Maz said, since he was Langston's roommate. "Langston's best mate, Billy, just got a new roommate. He's the lad with all the curls."

"No, this one didn't have curls," Liam said absently, watching Serena as they went through the routine once. "Isn't this the routine Serena had some trouble with last year?"

"Yeah, she seems to be having no trouble now, though," Andy remarked.

I waved to Liam again as he rushed off to take a call on his mobile phone as I was just slipping into some athletic sandals. Maz and Cher were already heading out the door, arguing about who got the bigger half of the red velvet cupcake they had bought together at the school store. Andy walked up to me, looking excited, which I knew was not a very good sign.

"'Better With the Lights Off'," he said simply once he had reached me.

"What?" I asked, extremely confused.

"The song!"

"I know it's a song, but what about it?"

"Okay, picture this: glow in the dark t-shirts, bracelets, and necklaces, in a pitch black gym and-"

"The only time the gym is pitch black is at night."

"Exactly. We'll sneak in, and-"

"We can only sneak in if we have the key."

"Which you'll get from your dad's office, and then we'll-"

"Andy, stop! I told you already that my dad doesn't want anymore breaking in or any messing around." He opened his mouth to protest, but I pushed past him toward the door to the lobby.

"Liam thinks it's a good idea!"

I froze, turning on my heels to face him, holding back every urge to slap him when I saw he was smirking. "Excuse me, what?"

"Liam thinks it's a good idea. He thinks it'll look really cool, and even he thinks it wouldn't be that big of a deal of we snuck in on a weekend night to do it."

"Is this supposed to change my opinion?"

"Yes."

I sighed as I remembered how easy it is to get into my dad's office; I knew exactly where all the keys to every room and building were. "You suck, Andy."

"You're considering it?"

"Slightly. But no promises!"

"How about a teeny, tiny promise to think about it a lot and realize how great of an idea it is?"

"No."

"Please? Just a wee promise, that's all I need."

I adjusted the strap of my dance bag on my shoulder, shifting my weight onto my other hip. "Fine. This better be one helluva good dance video, though."


	4. Chapter 3

It was a week into classes, and Zayn was now accustomed to rushing here, there, and everywhere all over campus to get to class, to the cafeteria, back to class, and to the theater for rehearsals. They were still just going over scripts, but choreography had begun for one or two of the songs, and the last thing Zayn was going to do was be late for that, considering his level of dance skill. It was not so much that he was a bad dancer, it was just that one of the things he had always been shyest about was his actions, and he did not want to do something extremely easy completely wrong. Olive, however, picked up the dance steps in an instant, and she had even agreed to help Zayn whenever he needed, even if she had said it in a very sarcastic manner. She said a lot of things in a sarcastic way, but Zayn had adjusted to it, and he could take it.

"Can you give this to Olive?" Graham asked, handing a school sweater to Zayn as they both walked quickly from their last class which they had together, heading toward the locker room and theater that were at the other end of campus. Graham had made the football team; apparently he had a bet with a new student named Niall he had become good friends with that if he beat Niall there everyday, Niall owed him a coupon to Nando's.

"Why do you have this?" Zayn asked, raising his eyebrows with a smirk.

"Olive came over to the dorm yesterday during our free."

"Girls aren't allowed in our dorm. Whatever could you two have been doing?"

Graham pushed Zayn so he nearly bumped into a boy with curly hair who was walking by, hand in hand with a blond. "_Studying_. She needed help in maths."

"Olive? She needed help?"

"Yeah. She struggles a lot with her grades. You didn't know that?"

"It's not exactly something people broadcast to the whole world."

"Yeah, I guess not, I just thought she or Jess might have mentioned it…"

"No, never." Zayn had spent free time during Drama classes with Jess, and he had picked up that Jess was not a very motivated student, but he would never say anything about anyone else's marks besides his.

"Oh…well, I mean, I try to help Olive out. I have since first year. She basically lives in our dorm during midterms and finals, just as a warning. Actually…it might be good that you're our roommate this year. Adamo is never much help at all, and my strengths are really only maths and science. You're really good at English, right?"

"I'm fairly good, I guess, yeah."

"You got the top marks on our first composition yesterday. Moriarty never gives marks that good on the first composition."

"I probably just got lucky."

Graham hit Zayn's shoulder. "Quit being so freaking humble. You're smart, and Olive could use your help. What? Did no one at your other school ever say you were a good writer?"

"Well, yeah, they did, but…they never exactly encouraged it, you know?"

"Yeah, I kn-Oi! That's Niall! I gotta go, mate! He's about to beat me!" Graham took off speeding toward the locker room, a blond boy just a few meters ahead catching site of him and taking off, too.

Zayn laughed, shaking his head, and walked, now at a slower pace than before. When he walked in, Olive ran up to him, flanked by two girls, one of which had nearly the same exact nose as Olive. Jess was strolling along behind them with his hands in his pockets, trying to look indifferent even though he was clearly interested in what was about to happen.

"Zayn, dear, dear, Zayn," Olive began, and that was when Zayn knew he was in troubled waters. "Have I ever introduced you to my cousin?"

Zayn looked at the girl to the right of Olive, whom he did not know directly by name but only knew by her face as one of the girls that Olive was almost always with at rehearsals and during class or on campus. "No, I don't think we've ever met," Zayn said politely.

"This is-"

"Liv, I can introduce myself," the girl said snappily. She turned to Zayn, putting a sweet smile on her face now. "I'm Ellie."

Zayn bit his lip as, behind Ellie's back, Jess did an impersonation of her and pretended to flip his hair. "I'm Zayn."

"Yeah, I know, Olive's been trying to talk you up to me."

"Oh, uh, why?"

"Because-"

"Ladies and gentleman!" Mr. Flanchez bellowed from the stage. "Would you please all take your seats! We have a few announcements before we begin our rehearsal for the day! Jess, spit that gum out now, boy, and I don't want to have to tell you that again!"

* * *

"Whoa!" Harry said, stepping to the side and pushing Molly over a little as he avoided being hit by a boy who had been pushed by his friend. Harry recognized him as Zayn, who was in Harry's English class. The teacher, Mr. Moriarty, had proudly told the class that Zayn had received the highest mark on the first composition of the year that he had ever given a student in his whole career as a teacher. Harry, who had not done very well on the composition, had been surprised to see Zayn did not turn an arrogant smirk on the whole class but had instead sunken a little bit lower in his seat, a few rows over from Harry.

"So, what are we going to do today?" Molly asked Harry, interlacing her fingers with his again after fixing her dangly earrings. "I have an hour until practice."

"I have you to myself for a whole hour?" Harry asked with a smile. "Well, aren't I the luckiest guy in the world?"

"Well…maybe not the luckiest…"

"What? Why not?"

"I kind of told my friend Serena that we would do our homework together at the library until practice."

"Serena? Serena Higgins?" Harry had a couple classes with Serena Higgins, and Molly and Lauren had mentioned her a few times. "The headmaster's daughter?"

"Yes."

"I don't know. I mean, I'm just such a Cheshire bad boy, I don't think I'll be a good influence on her."

Molly just giggled and rolled her eyes. "You obviously have never spoken to Serena."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's just say the only reason she's not suspended is because her dad is the headmaster. Sure, she's all polite and lady-like, but she likes to fool around with Andy and Maz more than anything."

"Andy and Maz? Wait…aren't they those two that do the dance videos all over campus?"

"Oh, yeah. Liam Payne joins them sometimes, but he's a bit too sensible, you know? Serena is the girl in them."

Harry whistled impressively. "She can _move_."

Molly turned her eyes on Harry with a dark look. "Excuse me?"

"Aw, you know what I mean. She's a good dancer." Harry placed a kiss on Molly's temple. "Not nearly as good as you, though."

"Ha, ha, very funny, Harry. Everyone knows Serena's the best dancer here. But the thought was appreciated."

Harry smiled just as a girl with her dirty blond hair in a plait came running down the stairs of the science building, which was right next to the library. Her uniform, always perfect intact and proper when Harry saw her in it, was a strict teacher's nightmare. Her blouse was untucked, the sleeves were rolled, her collar was popped, her knee socks were pushed down to her ankles, and she had the top three buttons of her shirt undone. She had her backpack over one shoulder and her dance bag over another. She smiled as she joined Harry and Molly, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.

"Hey, Molly," she greeted brightly. "Styles, right?"

"Right-o," Harry said. "Serena?"

"Yeah. And before you even ask, yes, I am the headmaster's daughter, and no, I don't forge his signature to get you out of any detentions. If I can't do it for myself, I can't do it for you."

"Get detentions often, do you, now?"

"No, not really." She and Molly exchanged a glance, which caused Molly to frown even though the corner of her mouth twitched a bit.

"What are you planning?" Molly asked Serena, trying to sound stern but not doing a very good job of it.

"Something you've never seen before," Serena said dramatically.

"Another dance video?"

"You're too good at this."

"What was Andy's big idea this time?"

"It's a secret."

"Will Liam be in it?"

Harry could not help but notice that Serena's cheeks became a bit pinker at the mention of Liam's name. Harry had no classes with Liam Payne, but he knew who he was because he was the school's star athlete, and everyone always said he was a genuinely nice, kind guy. "Yes."

"Must be really good if you're getting him back on the videos after last time. He's lucky they didn't give him as many detentions as you three."

"Well, he does have a perfect record…"

"According to you, what about him isn't perfect?"

"Molly!" Serena screeched, looking with alarm at Harry and then back at Molly. "Shut up!"

"Oh, please, everyone will know soon enough." Molly winked at Serena before snatching her arm and pulling her toward the library.

* * *

"Howard!" Louis shouted at his roommate over the blaring metal music. "What the hell?!"

"It's my new thing, man," Howard responded in a dazed tone. "Don't you like it?"

"This is effing ridiculous," Louis muttered, slamming his dorm door closed again and heading back down the hall with his backpack and football bag still on him. Louis had not spent more than thirty or forty minutes in his dorm since classes started the week before, except for when he was sleeping. Howard was always either high, or acting like an ass.

"Problem, mate?!" Darrell called down the hallway after stepping out of his room to check on what the noise was.

"Howard," was Louis's response before he started down the stairs at the end of the hallway that brought him down into the common room.

"Howard being an ass again?" Francis asked as Louis sat in the seat across from him at a table near a window. Francis was the senior editor of the school newspaper, so Louis knew whatever he was working on was most likely more important than worrying about Louis's problems, but he appreciated it.

"When is he not?"

"I don't know, mate. He was so normal during first and second year, but third year he just went off his rocker. Can you believe Eleanor nearly went out with him last year? She felt bad for him; no one was giving him a chance."

"She…she nearly…what? But…he's so rude. And mean. And disrespectful. He wouldn't treat her the way she deserves to be treated. What?"

Francis chuckled, looking down at the list he was writing. "Hey, calm down. She's not taken, you don't have to worry. Well…you might…"

"Excuse me, what? Are you implying you think I-"

"Like Eleanor as more than a friend and have dirty thoughts about her that you feel guilty about when you look her in the eye? Why yes, Louis, I am."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a smart ass?"

"Within the past five minutes? No, I don't believe so."

Louis could not help but smile. "What're you writing?"

"I need to make a list of possible choices for department editors. There's this kid who's a year below us, Billy, who's been on the newspaper since he was a first year. He's got a real skill for photography, so I think he would be a good choice for editor of photography. Do you know him at all?"

"Billy…Billy, Billy, Billy…Oh, yeah!" Louis snapped his fingers. "He crashed our football practice yesterday to play Mr. Mummy and give his friend Langston a water bottle. Langston's a good player; not quite as good as that Irish kid, Niall, but still pretty good. He was kicking around with his friend the other day, and I need to try to recruit him, he was really good. Do you know anyone the year below us with curly hair?"

"Billy's roommate, Harry? He's a new student, too."

"Must be him. He was good. And another lad on the team, Graham, was playing with someone. I think his name was Zayn or something. It was a different name."

"Oh, yeah, my little sister Olive is in theater with Zayn. She said something the other day about how he played football at his old school but he wanted to focus on drama here. You aren't allowed to recruit him for football, captain; I'm recruiting him for the arts section of the newspaper."

"Fine, fine, I'll stick with just recruiting Curly." Louis sighed, a broad smile on his face as he leaned back in his chair. "It's amazing, you know? Being captain of the team in my first year?"

"Co-captain," Francis coughed into his fist.

"Okay, _co_-captain with Darrell. It's amazing nonetheless."

"Yes, and I'm sure it has _nothing_ to do with the fact that your uncle is headmaster."

Louis pursed his lips, glaring at Francis. "You could do better."

"Meh, I haven't gone to dinner yet. I need some brain food. I'll go get Darrell. Why don't you go get your lover…I mean, Eleanor?"

Louis just shrugged. "Gladly." As they were standing up, Louis put his hand out to stop Francis. "Uh, you have everything set for Saturday night, right?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely. The question is: are you ready for your initiation?"

"More like, the question is: are _you_ ready?"

Francis smirked before putting his notebook away and heading up the stairs to get Darrell. Louis was just walking toward the door that led to the staircase to the girls' dormitories on the other side of the common room when Eleanor came running through, slamming right into Louis's chest.

"I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed, stepping back and brushing some hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. "I'm just starving and I just finished my homework! Can we go? Like, now? I barely had any lunch."

"We just need to wait for Darrell and Franc-"

"No time for waiting!" Eleanor shouted, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of the common room.

* * *

"Yes, Ruth, I know," Liam said into his cell phone as he fumbled for the key to his dorm. "Yes, yes…okay…I understand…Perfectly…Yes, I have eaten…That's fantastic that you don't have cafeteria food…Yes, that's great…Okay…Love you, too, bye."

Liam ended the call and tossed his phone on the bed, throwing his backpack and gym bag full of his track stuff right after it. Next, he flung himself onto the bed, letting himself sigh a little bit in relief once he was finally off his feet. He rolled over to see Andy looking at his screen intently, suddenly clicking a button once he seemed to have finished reading something. He looked at Liam excitedly.

"I just got all the glow in the dark stuff," he said with a huge smile. "And it was all half off."

"You're really doing this?" Liam asked him tiredly, sitting up on the bed and pulling his knees up. "What if you get caught? That's was happened last year."

"Yeah, we've gotten caught twice in the past fifteen times we've done these videos. But, seriously, Liam, this is going to be amazing. It's the best choreography we've ever had, and now we've got a gimmick: glow in the dark shit!"

"That's all good and well, but, really, Andy, what if you get caught? Serena can't-"

"Serena is a big girl who can make her own decisions. She doesn't need you or her dad telling her what she can and can't do. She's a damn good dancer, no one should be trying to hold her back."

"Hey, calm down, I'm not trying to hold her back. That's the last thing I would ever do to her."

"Then do the dance with us."

Liam smiled. "Oh, I see what you did there."

Andy widened his eyes, trying to look innocent. "I even bought an extra set of everything, just in case the most amazing best friend and human being on the planet decided he wanted to join us…"

Liam looked down at his Converse, thinking about all the pros and cons. "I mean…you showed me some of the choreography…and it's really good…and the setting would be amazing…"

"Amazing…" Andy repeated, just to add some emphasis.

"And it would be really fun…"

"Yes, superbly fun. See? Big word fun."

"And you have only been caught twice…as long as no one knows…"

"You're nearly there, Liam…"

"Fine, I'll do it!"

"Yes! Score one, team Samuels!" Andy did a fist pump before turning a smirk on Liam. "And Serena will love you forever and ever for this."

"Shut up!" Liam threw a pillow at Andy's head, but he ducked in time so it just hit the poster behind him. "We're just friends."

"Oh, I wouldn't want to be more than friends with you, but this is you and Serena we're talking about here."

Despite the fact that Liam was glaring at Andy, he could not help but laugh a little bit. "I don't like Serena in that way."

Andy turned his eyes back to the laptop screen. "You sure?"

"Yes."

"Naw, man, you aren't sure at all. I can hear it in your voice."

"Since when are you the love guru."

"One must endure much pain before one becomes the guru; hence, I am the guru."

"What?"

"I dunno, it sounded better in my head."

"You mean, you actually think up there? You don't just store vegetables there?"

"Ha, ha, very funny."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm just tired. First two weeks of classes always wipe me out. I just can't wait until Saturday night."

"Yeah. You're going to have to figure out when you can teach me the other dance moves."

Before Andy could propose a day, Liam's phone buzzed, and he picked it up after seeing it was Ruth calling him again.

"Hey, what's up?" Liam asked.

"It's mum," Ruth said quickly on the other end, breathless. "The ambulance just took her to the hospital."

* * *

"When's our first game?" Geoffrey asked Niall, turning around in his seat to speak to Niall and Graham, who were lab partners.

"Two weeks, against Marlborough Prep," Niall answered. "Do you think we'll be ready?"

"We better be," Graham said absently, turning around in his own seat to look at the girl in at the table behind them. Niall knew her name was Olive and that she was good friends with Graham, but that was the extent of Niall's knowledge of her. The only thing he knew about her lab partner, Ellie, was that she was Olive's cousin. At the table next to Niall and Graham's, on Graham's side, were two kids named Jess and Zayn that Graham was also really good friends with. "As long as you're in net, Geoffrey, we'll be fine."

"'Course we will," Geoffrey said confidently, popping his collar a bit.

"Hey, Niall," Buck, who was at the table next to Niall's, on Niall's side, said, "have you seen Cher?"

Niall looked toward the door, where a few people who had classes on the other side of campus, were still trickling in, but he did not see Buck's girlfriend anywhere in the group. "No, Buck, sorry. Wasn't she not as breakfast this morning?"

"No. I texted her and she didn't respond. I don't know where she is."

Niall felt bad when he saw the way Buck looked at the empty seat to his left; he really was concerned about where Cher was. Niall had only met Cher once, in quick passing as she was leaving the dorm after studying and Niall was coming back after football practice. He had two classes with her, science and English, and something about her seemed familiar. Niall never really got close enough to her to tell or looked at her long enough, but something about her just seemed so familiar. Niall knew Cher's best friend was a girl named Serena, who was also friends with Buck and the headmaster's daughter. Even though Niall had also only spoken to Serena once or twice, very briefly, he decided it was worth a shot to ask her if she knew where Cher was. He was unable to get his chance, though, because just then the teacher walked in and everyone was told to take their seats, and Serena was all the way in the back of the class with a lad named Liam Payne as her lab partner.

Since science was Niall's last class that day, he decided it was worth letting Graham get a head start to the locker room just this once. Niall hung back, walking over to Serena, who was having some trouble stuffing her textbook into her already full backpack.

"Hey, Serena?" Niall asked, getting her attention.

"Oh, hey," Serena said, still struggling.

"Uh, I was wondering if you knew where Cher was?"

"Um…" Serena looked around awkwardly. "Why do you need to know?"

"Buck was just really concerned and-"

"Aw, that's so sweet. But she's just not feeling well."

"What's wrong?"

"Uh…stomach bug."

"Stomach bug?"

"Yeah. I need to go; I have practice."

Serena moved past Niall, leaving him as the only one in the science room. Niall looked around the room, thinking, before he came to a decision. Instead of walking toward the locker room, he walked to the path that led to the main road that went through campus and walked to the stores that were just on the edge of campus. People who were not students could also shop there, and a lot of people who lived near there did, but the stores' biggest demographic was the students. First, Niall went to the small bakery, buying a croissant and a water bottle. He went into the small market store next, buying a cup of ramen noodles that sounded like maracas. With his shopping bags in his hands, he went back across campus, stopping at the house dormitory next to his, which was the one Serena, Graham, and Cher were in. Niall had to ask two girls in the lounge which room was Cher's and Serena's before going up the stairs, being watched suspiciously by the girls the whole time.

Niall was surprised to find a bright, smiling Cher answer the door when he had knocked. She looked just as surprised as him once she realized who it was, and she looked even more surprised when she saw the bags in his hands.

"Niall?" she said. "Did Buck send you?"

"Not exactly…" Niall said, now starting to realize how awkward this whole situation was and becoming extremely embarrassed, especially since Cher seemed perfectly healthy. "It's just, he was really concerned, and Serena said you had a stomach bug, and-"

"What's in the bags?" she interrupted.

Niall was momentarily distracted by how familiar Cher looked even though he could not figure out where he knew her from. "Uh…"

Cher laughed, loosening up a bit. She opened the door wider, motioning for him to step inside, and closed it behind him once he had. "Give me the bags. Take a seat."

"Well, like I said, Serena said you had a stomach bug," Niall explained as he took his backpack off and handed her the plastic shopping bags, sitting in a cushioned butterfly chair set up next to the bunk bed. "My mum used to always get me soup when I was sick, so I got you the next best thing. A good croissant, and a crappy excuse for soup. The dining hall won't be open for another hour, and waiting an hour for food can be horrible."

"Tell me about it," Cher said, sitting down on the bottom bunk, near Niall's chair. "It was sweet of you to think of me, though. I would have texted Buck, but I was too embarrassed to tell him why I was really out. I mean, if we weren't together, I wouldn't care, but somehow…I don't know."

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Let's just say, last night and this morning I went through a particularly bad time of bloody hell."

"Wha-…oh…Uh, I'm sorry. Should I have gotten you something different? Like, chocolate or something? I don't understand this stuff, I don't know."

Cher laughed again, and for a second Niall thought he knew where he recognized her from, but it slipped from his mind just as soon. Well, it was still there, but it could not be…she could not be… "It's nice of you to care, though. Don't you play football?"

"Uh…I got exempt from this practice."

"Really?"

Niall knew she knew he was lying, but for some reason, it had barely even crossed his mind that he would be missing some or even all of practice. "I just wanted to make sure you were alright. Buck was really concerned."

"Yeah, he gets like that. Can you put this on the desk next to you?"

As Cher reached toward Niall to give him the bag, he caught a whiff of her perfume, and then there was no way he could deny it. Between the sound of her voice, her laugh, and the scent of her perfume, he was now certain that she was the girl who had brought him up to the roof just a little bit over a week before. Niall was unsure whether to ask Cher about it, just to make sure. The only thing he was sure of was that there was two feet between him and Cher, a gap that could easily have been diminished had he wanted it to be.

"I should go," Niall said, standing up and walking toward the door. "I don't know, should I say feel better?"

"I wish I could," Cher said honestly, still smiling. "Bye, Niall. Stop by anytime, especially if you have one of those croissants on you."

Niall could not help it, he said, "I will."

* * *

After being held back by Niall for a few minutes after science, I had practically run to practice, and since it was our conditioning day, I had felt out of breath since. I was glad to see Liam walking into the gymnasium lobby at the same time as me since Andy had texted me while I was on my mad dash to practice and told me Liam had agreed to do the video with us. He turned when he saw me, smiling as I approached him. When I got closer, I realized his smile was not nearly as big or Liam-like as usual, and I immediately became suspicious. Had something happened?

Before I could ask him about it, or even talk to him, I heard the loud roar of the track and football teams coming out of the boys' locker room and the cheerleading and girls' football team coming out of the girls' locker room. Liam and I exchanged a glance, both of us knowing we would get swept up in the crowd once they reached the lobby. I grabbed his hand, pulling him toward the nearest door I saw, and we both stepped in. We were shrouded in darkness for a moment before there was a slight click, a single light bulb turning on just above our heads to reveal we were in the custodial closet for the gym. I could smell all the cleaning products more and more with each breath I took, but they were mixed with the smell of cheap soap that was hanging on Liam from his shower after practice. I suddenly became very aware of how drenched in sweat I was, and really wished I had walked a little quicker to the locker room to take a shower before they had all been taken.

"Are you okay?" I asked Liam, and I was surprised he could hear me over the noise coming from the lobby.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Liam said, but he was the worst liar in the world, and he knew it better than anyone else besides maybe me. "There's just some stuff going on."

"Like what?"

"Just things."

"Such as?"

"Serena, I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, that's too bad, because we're going to talk about it because I'm your best friend and I don't like seeing you the slightest bit upset."

Liam gave a small smile again, but he did not say anything. Just as suddenly as the noise had entered the lobby, it left, leaving behind an almost eerie sort of silence. I did not want to walk out into the lobby from a closet with a boy behind me if there was somebody still there. Liam, who seemed to understand this, pointed toward the doorknob, which had a keyhole in it. I bent down so I was level with the doorknob and tried to look through, closing one eye and squinting the other eye to try to get a good view. Suddenly, the doorknob turned, and before I could stand up, the door had flung open.

"Oh, sorry," Andy muttered, looking at Liam, who was still standing up, and me, who was still nearly on my knees right in front of Liam. "I didn't know…"

"It's not!" Liam said quickly, pulling me up to my feet so quickly I was actually lifted into the air for a few brief moments. "She was trying to look through the keyhole and-"

"Suuuure," Andy said, nodding his head. "'Looking' through the 'keyhole.'"

"Andy," I said sharply, crossing my arms. "We were just talking and we didn't want people to see us walking out together and think-"

"You were doing the nasty in the closet? I mean, of all places, a custodian's closet? At least use an empty classroom. More space."

"Andy!"

"Hey, I'm not judging, I'm _helping_."

"It would help a lot more if you would just keep your bloody mouth shut."

"I think you're the one that could benefit a lot more from keeping your mouth shut."

"Andy!" Liam scolded, punching him hard on the shoulder.

"Hey, I'm only joking!" Andy said defensively, putting his arms up in surrender. "Tough crowd."

"I didn't find it funny," I told him coldly, pushing past him to walk out of the gymnasium with him and Liam staring after me. Out on the front steps, I saw Maz standing there, waiting.

"Well, someone looks pissed," Maz tried to say lightly.

"Someone is extremely freaking pissed," I spat at him so harshly he actually took a step back from me, as if he was afraid I would hit him or something.

"Serena!" Liam called after me, running out of the gymnasium and down the stairs after me. "Hey, Maz. Serena! Serena, wait!"

If I had not been so sore from conditioning, I probably would have taken off at a full sprint back to my dorm, which would not have been too helpful because Liam was in the same house as me. "What?" I demanded, digging my heels into the ground as I turned.

"I'm sorry," Liam said once he had reached me. "I'm sorry about what happened back there."

"You're not the one who should be apologizing."

"You know Andy was only kidding."

"I'm just tired of everyone kidding, though."

"Of everyone kidding about what?"

"About us! Saying stuff! Making remarks! It's just annoying!"

"Why?"

"Because you're my friend and I don't like you that way!"

Liam nodded, understanding. "Yeah, it is annoying, I guess. Just ignore it." Liam attempted a smile, putting an arm reassuringly around my shoulder. "They're all dumb-dumbs."

"Alright, Liam whatever you say."

We started walking back toward the dorm, the mood lightened a bit. I could not help but think about Liam's arm around my shoulders, though, and how warm he was. It was not the kind of "I could feel his body heat" warm, though. It was the kind of warm you feel when you have the heat cranked up in the middle of January on a Sunday morning when you are wrapped up in a flannel blanket, drinking hot cocoa. It was the kind of warm that makes you feel comfortable and makes your heart breathe a sigh of relief, because it has finally reached home.


	5. Chapter 4

"She's great, man," Harry told Martin over video chat. "She's funny and nice and hot and…Damn, she's really hot."

"Sounds like you've got a keeper there, Styles," Martin said, smirking. "So, it's really a good school?"

"Yeah, I felt right at home as soon as I got here. I knew the second I saw Molly that she was special. I guess I was right about that."

"Has she got a good appetite? Because we're still working on getting enough together to send you that cake."

Harry rolled his eyes. "She doesn't really eat a lot around me, but she says she pigs out all the time back at her dorm with Lauren."

"Lauren? So your lady friend has a friend, does she?"

"Yes, and she's too smart for you, so don't get any ideas, Marty boy."

"Hey, I was just being inquisitive."

"Yeah, sure." Harry looked at his watch. "Er, I have to go. Dinner on Saturdays can be pretty hectic."

"One quick thing, mate: why didn't you try out for football?"

Harry shrugged. "I just didn't think I was good enough, you know? And I wanted to get the feel of the school before I did anything like that. I think maybe next year I'll try out. I'll go to a camp or two over the summer for skills."

"Alright. Some of the lads were just wondering, 'cause you always played at home. Enjoy your dinner…and your dessert." Martin winked at Harry with a small smirk.

"Oh, I will."

Harry ended the video chat just as Billy and Langston walked into the room, tossing their things on their bunks and beginning their search for their meal card. Langston had brought back his football bag, and Billy had just gotten back from taking photographs of everyone enjoying their second weekend on campus after getting all settled in. Harry had slept late and spent most of the afternoon doing homework, not wanting to put it off for too long so he would not get into the habit of procrastinating.

"Ready for dinner?" Harry asked his roommates, already standing up and heading for the door.

"I'm starving," Langston groaned, throwing on a clean t-shirt and throwing the sweaty one from practice into a heap of other sweaty clothes near his bottom bunk.

"Yeah, I worked up quite an appetite taking pictures all day," Billy said, following Harry out the door.

Billy started talking about a car crash he had seen near the campus's main road when he was out taking photographs as they walked to the dining hall. Langston immediately went for the line for the meat, while Billy went straight to the dessert cart, claiming that you only live once, so you must eat dessert first. Harry just laughed, turning to get in line for vegetables and crashing right into someone walking away from the line, causing the boys vegetables to go pouring onto the floor off his plate.

"Sorry," Harry and the other boy said at the same time as they both bent down to start picking up the food and throwing it in the nearby rubbish bin.

"It's fine," the boy, who Harry now recognized as one of the two captains of the football team, said with a small shrug.

"But I knocked down all your carrots!"

"Eh, I hate them anyway." The boy stood up, throwing the last of some cucumbers and turnips into the rubbish. "Now I have an excuse not to eat healthy. Thanks."

"Anytime."

Zayn, Graham, Olive, and Jess walked back from the field after Zayn, Olive, and Jess met up with Graham at the end of his football practice. As they walked toward the dining hall, Olive and Graham broke off from the other two to go study in the library for a test they had in history the next day. Apparently one of Graham's friends from the football team was really good at history and had agreed to help Olive, but Zayn did not know who it was because he did not have history with them.

"Oh, such studious students, going off to actually study for a test," Jess remarked with a tone of disapproval as he watched the other two walk away.

"There's nothing wrong with doing well in school," Zayn said, slightly defensive.

"I'm not saying there is, I just prefer not to waste my time with such unimportant things as studying."

"That's a great attitude for life."

"Hey, it's gotten me this far. At this rate, I'll be expelled from two more schools and then accepted at Oxford with a full scholarship. The Fates just love me, you know?"

Zayn laughed. "Yeah, I'm sure they do."

"So, uh, this is a bit off topic, but, um, what did you think of Ellie?"

"I didn't really get to talk to her. I don't really think Olive wants me to."

"Olive's smarter than a lot of people give her credit for…"

"Why?"

"Ellie is just…she's a piece of work, that's all I'm going to say."

"What do you mean?"

"She likes to play mind games. She'll make herself the focus of your attention, and then call you clingy, and then say you're too distant, and then accuse you of things, make you defend yourself, and use you."

"You really know how to talk someone up, don't you?"

Jess frowned, shaking his head. "Just don't get involved, Zayn. She's hot as hell, but it's not worth getting involved. The worst part is, she actually likes you, so you're in Ellie quicksand right now."

"How do you know so much?"

"I'm a good friend of Olive's, she tells me things."

"Ellie's her cousin, she wouldn't talk about her like that."

"Okay, so maybe I had a thing with Ellie…but I got out far better than the guy before me."

"What happened?"

"Dunno. He transferred a month after I got here."

"Oh…She's not really my type, though."

"She pees sitting, she's your type."

It was Zayn's turn to frown. "I prefer girls who are intelligent."

"Oh, Ellie's not the best student academically, but she's got to have some awful cunning to be able to play the games she does."

"Does she write?"

"What? What the hell? No."

"I want a girl who writes. I don't know, I just do. I want a girl who will ask me to read things she writes because she thinks I'm as smart as her."

"I never would have become friends with you if I knew you were this soft."

"Shut the hell up, I'm not the one moaning and groaning about my ex-girlfriend."

"I'm not moaning and groaning, I'm warning. Like a foglight."

"So, can I can you Foggie from now on?"

"No, it sounds like a slimy animal."

"Picky, picky. Maybe I'll go with Ellie just to spite you."

Jess laughed. "If you want to do that, I'll have to find a store that sells a 'good luck in hell' card."

Liam sat on his bed, staring at the phone lying silent right in front of him. Andy, Maz, Serena, and Cher were all already off at dinner, but he had not been in the mood to eat. He had not heard from his sister in two days, and he was dying to know what was happening with his mother. At the moment, they did not know what the diagnosis was, all they knew was that Mrs. Payne was not doing well at all. She was constantly being watched and checked on by nurses and doctors, and had to go through all sorts of tests everyday.

"Are you ready?" Andy asked excitedly as he walked into the room, flanked by Maz and Serena. Liam tried his best not to let the color rush to his cheeks at the sight of Serena after what had happened with the closet.

"Ready for what?" Liam asked absently, looking back down at his phone.

"Ready for the video!" Maz exclaimed. "It's tonight! Serena's already got the key, and we have our t-shirts and the glow in the dark necklaces and bracelets and the choreography is all set. You aren't backing out now, are you?"

"It's Saturday?"

Maz opened his mouth to say something as Andy and Serena exchanged a glance, looking as if they were remembering something they had spoken about. Liam knew from their look that it involved him, especially when Serena sat down in front of him and reached out to put a hand gently on his arm with a warm look.

"Li, are you okay?" Serena asked him, looking at him closely.

"I'm fine, there's just some stuff going on," Liam responded as vaguely as he could, but the looks of concern and worry only grew on his friends' faces. "Listen, it's just a family thing. It'll all be over in a couple days, hopefully. I'm just really distracted. I don't think it would be a very good idea for me to do the video. Honestly, I don't remember half the dance moves."

"Maybe it would help."

"Yeah, mate, it might get your mind off of whatever is going on," Maz put in, giving a reassuring smile.

"No, he's right, it's probably best if he doesn't do it," Andy said regretfully, giving Liam a pat on the shoulder. "We don't have to do the video tonight, either. We can put it off if you want us to. I won't be much help, but Serena's a girl, so she's good with talking and stuff."

"I'll be fine," Liam said, managing a weak smile as I covered a dark look directed at Andy, who was trying not to smirk at me. "You all better make a great video for me, though."

"We will," Serena told him with assurance, patting his arm where her hand still was. "Did you eat anything?"

"I had a few bottles of Gatorade and protein bars. The dining hall is still open for another hour, I might go over in a little while."

"Do you want me to go back with you?"

"No, I think I just need to be alone for now."

Serena pursed her lips, clearly not happy with this conclusion. "Alright. Text me if you need anything."

Serena reached out, hugged Liam, and then got up to leave with Andy and Maz behind her. Once they were gone, Liam grabbed another protein bar off the desk near his bed and focused his attention once again on the phone in front of him.

"Hey, Niall," Cher said as she walked into the dorm, holding hands with Buck. Niall tried to look everywhere but at their intertwined fingers. "What's up?"

"Nothing, just about to go over to dinner," he said, closing his maths textbook. After practice, he had helped his friend Graham and a classmate, Olive, with her history, and now was the only time he had had for his own homework. "I think I'm going to meet up with Geoffrey and go to the movie at the campus cinema. I don't want to be a third wheel."

"Nah, it's fine," Buck said, even though Cher seemed to have looked pretty relieved when Niall said he was going someplace else after dinner. Had she looked too relieved? Niall began to have a weird, sick feeling in his stomach as he realized the possibility that Cher may not like him very much. "We weren't really planning on doing anything either. Maybe we'll meet up with you guys at the movies."

"No, don't do that. This pretty girl over here deserves a nice date night alone with you. Take her up to the shops or something."

"That sounds-" Cher began to say with a smile.

"I think we'll just stay here. Enjoy your dinner, mate."

Niall laughed as he walked toward the door. "Oh, you know I always do."

Just as Niall was closing the door behind him, he heard Cher's voice trail after him. "Oh, shoot, you know what I just remembered? I promised Serena I would help her with something tonight. We were supposed to meet later, but she just sent me a text this morning changing the time, and I'm really sorry, but I need to go, babe."

Niall's heart skipped a beat as he paused in the corridor, playing around with the idea of walking down the hall, feigning surprise when he saw Cher, and then deciding to use that time to confront her about the roof. When he heard the doorknob turn, though, he chickened out and ran down the hall as fast as he could on his toes so he would not make a sound. He managed to get to the staircase before Cher was even in the hallway, and he, to his great pleasure, did not have to see her kiss Buck good-bye before she left, heading toward the stairs.

"Oi! Niall!" Cher called down the staircase just a few seconds after Niall heard the sound of her shoes on the stairs.

"Yes?" Niall, who had purposely gone a bit slower down the stairs, asked as he looked up from the landing before the last flight of stairs that led into the common room.

"I think we need to talk," she said, hastily going down the two flights of stairs that separated her landing from the fourth floor and Niall's on the second.

"What do we need to talk about?" Niall asked, trying to keep his voice steady, once she had reached his landing.

"Do you remember the first night you were here?"

"And you and one of your friends brought me up to the roof and left me there to find my way back to my dorm even though I didn't know where I was going?"

Cher looked down at her feet, guilt all over her face. "Listen, Niall, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean-"

Niall laughed out loud, cutting her off. "Cher, I don't care. It was funny!"

Cher looked at him closely, as if to make sure he was not lying. "You really thought it was funny?"

"Yes! It was brilliant. It didn't take me that long to find my dorm, either. It was actually a good idea."

Cher smiled, looking very relieved. "Good. I thought you would hold that against me forever if you knew it was me…how did you know it was me, though?"

Niall bit his tongue, trying not to let his face get to red as he thought of all the things he had thought of Cher since he realized it was her who had sung. "Your voice."

"Yeah, but I mean, it was one o'clock in the morning. You couldn't have remembered my voice that well."

Niall took a small breath, preparing to plunge into something he might regret later. "And your laugh. And your perfume."

Cher stared at him for a few moments before a smile spread across her face, which just made Niall smile on its own. "You recognized my perfume?"

"Well," Niall said, taking a bold step forward, "it was everything. Perfume, lotion," Niall reached out to lightly hit a strand of Cher's hair with his index finger, "shampoo. Everything."

"And did everything smell that repulsive that you remembered it?"

Niall laughed again. "No, not at all. I knew it was you. I don't know, I just…knew." Niall locked eyes with Cher, a moment that was so intense he decided his best chance to not do anything stupid would be to change the subject. "You're an amazing singer, you know that?"

Cher shrugged modestly. "I'm okay."

Niall felt a small pain in his chest at the way she downplayed her abilities, and instinctively he reached out to her. He put his hand on her cheek, looking her right in the eye. "You, Cher Lloyd, are amazing."

Cher bit her lip, shaking her head as she stepped back. "Niall, I can't do this. Buck is a really great guy and he's a friend of yours now and I just can't do this."

Niall stepped back, pulling his hand in close to himself. "Oh…wow, Cher, I'm sorry. I didn't mean…I mean, I just got caught up in the moment…I didn't mean anything by it. You really are a great singer, but I don't think of you…that way."

Cher nodded. "Yeah, I totally get it. I mean, I was caught up in the moment, too." Cher threw her hands up. "I was nearly about to kiss you!"

Niall looked shocked, trying his best to hide his disappointment. "And we can't have that happening, can we?"

"Nope!" A silence fell over them, and Cher looked around for a little bit before pointing toward the stairs. "Well, I should go."

"Right, because Serena needs your help, doesn't she?"

Cher just looked at Niall for a moment, confused. Suddenly, realization dawned on her. "Yes, right, because I'm helping Serena with…something."

Niall watched Cher walk down the stairs and disappear into the common room before he finally started back up the stairs, going back to his dorm. When he walked in, Buck looked up from his lacrosse magazine in surprise.

"Did you forget your meal card or something?" Buck asked.

"Nah, I'm just not hungry," Niall told him, shrugging and falling back into his seat at his desk.

"You're not hungry? But…you're always hungry."

Niall shrugged again. "Not today."

"Are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." And if he was not, Buck was the last person he was going to tell about the reason why.

"Hey, where you going?!"

Louis clenched his hand in a fist before looking furiously back over his shoulder at Howard, who was at the opposite end of the common room from him. Louis just continued walking out of the common room and across the campus until he had appeared next to the gym, looking around in the darkness that was only slightly lit by the lights showing through the windows of dorm rooms. A loud noise next to Louis made him jump, but he took a deep breath and steadied himself when he realized it was just Darrell, Francis, and Eleanor walking toward him along the side of the gymnasium. The loud noise he had heard was them shaking the cans of spray paint in their hands.

"Here," Francis whispered as he handed Louis his own can, even though whispering was beyond the point considering how much noise the cans were making.

"The door to the gym must have been left open after the practices or something," Darrell said, "so we changed our placement. We're going to do it in the lobby."

"Fine by me," Louis said, shrugging.

At the same time they all looked around and over their shoulders, making sure there were no teachers or staff members nearby before they walked on tip-toe around the edge of the gym, through the front doors that were unlocked. Once they were inside the gym, they heard something that sounded like music coming from the main gym, and Louis tried to crane his neck to look through a window in one of the doors.

"What's going on?" he asked, still trying to look even though he could, at the moment, see nothing but darkness inside the gym.

"Probably Andy, Serena, and Maz," Francis said with a shrug. "They do these dance videos all over school, when and where they shouldn't. A lot of people like them."

"They're really good," Eleanor added. "And they never get caught. Wait…you're uncle's the headmaster…and Serena is the headmaster's daughter…"

"So Serena's my cousin," Louis finished for her, smiling, but he was now trying to look better through the window. "Yes, she is. Why does she need the lights off, though? Are the other two boys? Why is she alone with two boys in a dark room?"

"Aw, look at you being protective."

"I'm going to put the broom in the door so no one can get in," Darrell announced, but neither Eleanor nor Louis heard or cared.

"I don't need to be. She's got four brothers. Two older, two younger."

"Emanuel Higgins?"

Louis turned to Eleanor, inclining his head. "You talk like you know him?"

Eleanor shrugged. "I knew _of_ him. He had quite a reputation with the ladies. He had a very…impressive reputation with the ladies."

Louis shrugged, brushing off one of his shoulders. "We raise them well."

"Do all you Tommos like to rebel against your parents?"

"They aren't even Tomlinsons, but yes, I guess we do, in our own way. Emmanuel was a player, Serena has been denying her parents dream for her to attend Oxford forever so she could dance, and I just like to joke around."

"How about fool around?"

Louis smirked. "Cheeky."

"If you two are done," Francis said impatiently, taking the cover off of his can of spray paint, "we should probably get to our masterpiece."

"Right," Louis said, uncapping his own can.

Louis crossed the lobby to wear Francis was beginning the outline of a face. Darrell was holding up a picture of the school librarian for Francis to go by. Francis was making sure to get the outline close enough that you would be able to guess who it was, but you could not really be entirely sure. By the time he was done, with all the touch-ups he wanted to make and everything, he was nearly out of paint. Darrell took over, now going by a picture of a swimsuit model that Louis was holding up. When he was done with that outline, it was Louis's turn with the red paint to create the swimsuit that would be on the body attached to the librarian's head.

Louis had just finished with the bottoms when there was a very loud bang on the door. In fact, the noise was so loud that just a moment later the sound of music playing from the gymnasium was turned off. However, from inside the gym, they heard the sound of a few pairs of feet running. One look was exchanged between the four in the lobby after there was another bang on the door, nearly splintering the broom, before they all took off running down the hallway that led into large room full of workout equipment. Behind them, they heard the sound of a couple people chasing after them in the darkness and saw flashlight beams right behind them.

"_Hide_!" Louis hissed at Eleanor, pushing her behind one of the treadmill that had been folded up and was pushed about a foot away from the wall to make room for mats on the floor.

"What?" Eleanor demanded, her voice slightly muffled. "But I'm-"

"Not going to get in trouble. You didn't do anything. Stay here until we leave. I swear to God, if you turn yourself in-"

"I won't."

"Good girl; you'll get a treat for that tomorrow."

Louis could almost feel Eleanor's glare as he ran toward the door Darrell and Francis were huddled around that led into the locker room, trying to push it open. Just as the door was starting to give way a little bit, the whole room was illuminated by a bright light. Louis chanced a look toward the treadmill Eleanor was behind and was glad to see she had pressed herself as close to the wall as possible, so she was completely invisible to the people standing in the doorway on the opposite side of the room from the three boys.

"Louis," his uncle Paul said with a small sigh, "I expected better of you."

"I just feel bad," I said as I sat down on the bleachers in the dark next to Andy, our only source of light his iPod on the iHome. "I want to help him so much."

"Oh, I'm sure you do," Andy said, smiling.

"Shut up, Andy!" I punched him in the arm. "I hate seeing Liam this way."

"Oh, please, you hate seeing any of your friends down. Cher broke a nail last week and I thought you were going to carry her to class."

"I never said-"

"It's never in what you say; it's just in the way you act."

I side glanced at Andy suspiciously. "When did you become so observant of people's actions?"

Andy pointed at his eyes. "Dumbledore sees all."

I shook my head, looking out across the gym and waiting for Maz to appear with the glow in the dark t-shirt and accessories. As the time was coming closer, I was beginning to have more and more doubts. "You don't think we'll get caught, do you?"

"Of course not!"

"If we did, though, my dad would be so disappointed…"

I felt Andy look at me but I could not bring myself to look at him because I was so ashamed. I had never been the one that was questioning everything we did; not until now, that is. I used to always have the attitude of "I love the dance, screw what anyone else thinks or says about it". Lately, however, my dad had been talking about how good my grades were, and maybe if I just studied a tiny bit more instead of goofing off with Liam, Andy, and Maz around campus, I could be top of my class.

"Do you know what would suck?" Andy suddenly said, and I swear he was reading my mind. "If Liam, Maz, and I had to start missing you. That would just really suck."

"I'm not going anywhere," I said with finality.

I loved to dance more than anything, and I knew just as well as anyone else that I was better at it than most people my age. I did not just think of it as a hobby; I thought of it as a plausible career option. If my dad thought he could get me to change my mind, and get me to start "swimming with a better crowd", he better have a few other thinks coming. There was no way I was leaving my guys, especially with Liam the way he was, because that was just not the kind of thing I did. I loved dance, I loved my friends, and I did not give up on the things I loved just because of a few measly words.

"Ah! Here comes Mazzi Maz!" Andy shouted happily, jumping off the bleachers and running toward Maz who was carrying a couple large plastic bags.

I jogged after Andy to dig through the bags until I had adorned myself with a glow in the dark necklace, bracelets all the way up my arm, and I even slid a few necklaces and bracelets over my black yoga pants onto my thighs and calves. Andy and Maz promptly tore off their shirts, pulling on the fluorescent yellow muscle shirts they had ordered. Maz handed me mine and I ran behind the bleachers to change, tossing my dark gray tee next to Andy's iHome.

"I think we should run through it a few times before we record," Maz suggested, placing his camera down next to the iHome as well. I do not know where he had found them, but Andy had managed to find glow in the dark lip rings for his snake bites.

"Sounds good, Mazzi," I agreed, walking over next to Andy, who was dramatically stretching while Maz turned his back to us and began to scroll through the songs on the iPod. "Hey, where did you get those glow in the dark lip rings? Do they have larger barbells?"

"Why?" Andy asked in a teasing tone. "Want one for you belly hole?"

At that moment I was doing the stretch where one arm was bent behind my head and the other hand was pushing the elbow down so my shirt was lifted up. Andy took full advantage of this, reaching out and tickling me right below my belly button, where I currently had a titanium barbell with a silvery blue butterfly at the bottom. I laughed loudly and stepped away, dropping my arms as the pleasant butterflies faded from my stomach and my blood, which had suddenly felt a few degrees hotter in my veins, went back to normal. Andy and I exchanged a smirk, but I could not help wondering what my reaction would have been like had Liam been the one to do that. I probably would have been too turned on to even think straight.

"All set?" Maz asked, turning back to us.

"For what?" Andy and I asked stupidly at the same time.

"Oh, right," I said, chuckling and taking a step back to get a little farther away from the bleachers, "the dance. Play the song."

Maz just gave me a sketchy look before he played the song and stepped over next to me. After the little "It's the Cataracts" introduction that, admittedly, annoyed me a lot, we went right into the choreography. We went through the whole routine once without a problem, but Maz wanted to go through it once more just to make sure. During one of our first videos he had messed up on the choreography pretty badly and we had only had time to do one recording of the song that day before it was the time we had promised we would post another video. Ever since, he had been really picky about going through the routines, mostly for his own personal sense of security, even though he always was spot on and perfect with his moves, even during the freestyle moments. After going through it the second time, we each took a break to take a short drink from our water bottles before Maz began to set up his camera on his tripod on the bleachers.

"Are you sure your camera will be able to pick up on-"

I was cut off when, from out in the lobby, we heard something that sounded like a large boulder being rammed into the door. We did not even exchange a glance or say anything, we just knew what to do. I tore off all the necklaces and bracelets at the same time as Andy and Maz, who both took off their shirts and threw them in with the iHome, Andy slipping his iPod back into his pocket. "It'll take the bags," Maz said, throwing his camera in the bag, too, and picking them up, "Serena, your shirt is so damn bright! Change it!" I snatched my tee of the bleacher as we ran across the gym, heading toward the exit door. I tore the tank top off on the go, threw it the bag Maz was holding, and pulled on my other shirt.

"You've been doing crunches, haven't you?" Andy asked conversationally as we both rammed into the exit doors, opening them wide for Maz to run through.

Andy and I immediately felt terrible for doing that because Maz ran forward, straight into the blinding flashlight beam of a school guard waiting there. "Go!" Maz shouted, not needing to tell Andy and me twice as we took off around the side of the gym, the guard unsure whether to stay with Maz or go after us, too. Andy and I had only gone so far before we nearly crashed, literally, right into my dad, who was dragging two boys by the collar with the head disciplinarian of the school dragging another boy, too. I recognized the boy in my dad's left hand immediately at my cousin.

"Serena!" my dad barked angrily.

"Louis," I scolded, frowning at him.

"Serena," Louis mimicked, a smirk playing on the edges of his lips.

"Andy," Andy said proudly, standing up to his full height.

"Serena! Samuels!" my dad shouted. "Detention, two months! You're both on weekend lockdown for a month! I assume Maz is around here, somewhere, and he'll be receiving the same punishment. You are also both not allowed to the Halloween Dance." My dad turned his gaze to fix it on me, and he was positively fuming. "What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?"

The way he was looking at me, as if I had committed a murder or something, made me absolutely furious. "I was dancing," I told him, shrugging and crossing my arms. "Do you have a problem with me expressing myself through something I love?"

"I have a problem with you breaking into my office and stealing school property to break into a building after curfew with two boys unsupervised."

"It's Andy and Maz! It's not like it was-" I had to stop myself before I said it was not as if I was with Liam.

"You know…" Louis said slyly, sneaking a quick look at my dad, "what Serena has done deserves a nice, long talk back at your office. Maybe the boys and I should just go back to our-"

"Andrews, take them to my office where I'll deal with them in a minute," my dad said, letting go of the two boys and motioning for them to follow after the disciplinarian as he headed toward the main building of the academic offices. "Serena, I expected better of you. Andy…I expected after our little chat you would have been more careful."

He looked at us, both Andy and me, with the typical expression of a disappointed father before walking back toward the office building. From the look on Andy's face, I knew suggesting we go back to the gym and try to shoot the video was completely pointless. A few seconds later, Maz walked by, being herded forward by the school guard toward the office building.

"You had a 'little chat' with my dad?" I asked Andy as we began walking back toward our dormitories.

"Yeah, he called me up during the second day," Andy said nonchalantly, shrugging as if it was nothing. "We were just talking about the future and uni and stuff."

"You talked to my dad about university?"

"Yeah. I mean, he went to County Cork so he said he could write me a really good recommendation there and it would be really helpful, but he said he would write it for wherever I wanted to go, really."

"He did?"

"He just didn't really ever let me talk about having an option besides going to university. He didn't even want me to talk about a gap year."

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. "He doesn't like gap years. Just to spite him, I'll probably take five."

"And by then you'll be one of the most sought-after dancers in all of England, so you won't even need an education!"

"Right you are."

"Between your status as a famous dancer and Liam's status as an Olympic runner, you two will be the world's most popular couple."

"Mhm, of course."

"Ahhh, so you aren't even denying that there's a passionate, sexual, desirous connection between you two?"

"I wouldn't describe it _that_ way, but, to you, I will admit that maybe I have itty bitty tiny feelings for-"

"Yeah, yeah, we don't need to hear all about your feelings for each other. When are you popping out those Lirena babies?"

"Those what? And babies? Whose even talking about babies? I don't even think Liam likes me that way! And what if he doesn't?" By now, Andy was making hand puppets to show that I was talking too much, but I did not care. "I just need to forget about it. I'll be over him soon enough."

"Didn't Cher say that about Buck? Look where they are now!"

I rolled my eyes. "She deserves so much better than Buck, though…And what if I'm the Buck? What if everyone goes around saying 'Liam deserves so much better than Serena'?"

By that point, I had gotten so into talking that I did not even realize we were already at the door to Andy's dorm. Liam opened the door, his face blank except for his eyes, which were a little bit bigger than usual as he stared at me.

"They wouldn't," he muttered.

Andy looked from Liam to me to Liam to me. "Awkward," he said quietly in a sing-song voice before slipping into the room.

"We were just talking hypothetically," I explained hastily to Liam, but he did not seem convinced.

"Liam, darling, come rub my feet!" Andy called from within the dorm. "I've had a rough night!"

"Uh, you should go."

Liam just nodded, and the amount of silence coming from him besides those two words he said were enough to drive me insane. As I walked away the door closed, and I swear I heard the sound of someone being punched and Andy shout.


	6. Chapter 5

On the last Thursday of October, Zayn sat in his seat in Mr. Moriarty's English class, looking absently out the window. At the moment, Graham was up at Mr. Moriarty's desk quietly discussing his latest paper, looking very heated. Zayn glanced around the room at the other students who all looked bored out of their mind as the last few minutes of the last class slowly went by, everyone anxious to get out to put the final touches on their costume before the Halloween dance the next night. A curly haired boy named Harry a few rows over was talking to his girlfriend Molly, his eyes fixated on nothing but her lips, an observation that made Zayn feel as if he had just intruded on something he should not have. Next to Molly, a girl named Serena Higgins, most commonly known as the headmaster's daughter, was braiding her hair, looking as if she was getting comfortable. Whenever they had English last class, Zayn noticed that Serena did not leave, and he had heard a few weeks prior that the headmaster's daughter had gotten busted for breaking into the gymnasium and had detention for a couple months.

When the bell rang, everyone stood up in a hurry, rushing toward the door. Zayn was practically running out the door when he felt someone grab hold of his arm and pull him back, dragging him toward the desk. Mr. Moriarty's usually pale face was slightly tinged with pink and Graham was bright red.

"Tell him this paper doesn't deserve a D," Graham said furiously, thrusting the paper toward Zayn.

"Uh…" Zayn stuttered, looking quickly between Mr. Moriarty and Graham. "I really don't think…"

"No, Zayn, tell us," Mr. Moriarty said. "I would love to hear the incorrect opinion of yet another student."

Zayn looked at Graham, and the expression on his face told Zayn that this was something worth helping him fight for. "If it's an opinion, how is it incorrect?"

Apparently Zayn had hit a nerve because Mr. Moriarty clenched his teeth and balled his hands into fists on the desk. "Detention for your lip, Mr. Malik! Please take a seat next to Mr. Higgins. Mr. Greyson, don't you have a practice to get to? You will receive your final grade tomorrow."

Graham huffed and puffed with anger as he took his backpack and left the room. Zayn stared at Mr. Moriarty, who motioned dramatically toward the seat before looking back down at the pile of papers in front of him. Zayn, still shocked by what had just happened, numbly walked over to the seat in the row nearest the window, three seats back. He stared across the room gloomily at Mr. Moriarty, thinking of all the things this could do to him once the academic building found out he had gotten a detention. Would his scholarship be taken away? Would he still be able to attend St. Germaine's for the rest of the year and the next without it?

"Your scholarship will remain intact, Mr. Malik," Mr. Moriarty said, as if reading Zayn's mind. Both Zayn and the girl Serena jumped. "And in case you were wondering, I did not change Graham's grade."

"Why not?" Zayn asked curiously. "I read the paper and it seemed fine."

"Fine, Mr. Malik, is a very strong word. The paper was 'fine' because it consisted of everything it should have, but nothing more and nothing less. I do not grade people based on how much they reach my level of expectation; I grade them based on how much they exceed it. One cannot simply write; one must write with emotion. Mr. Greyson's paper contained only what I would have expected and nothing that surprised me or made me think. Do you agree?"

"I guess I do, yeah. I mean, writing is supposed to kind of be, like, a little door to our soul, right?"

"Exactly right, Mr. Malik, which is why you do so well in my class and received an A on your paper. Mr. Greyson's paper was simply about the similarities of Lady Montague and his own mother, nothing of much substance. Yours, however, was about Juliet. If you don't mind my asking, who were you comparing her to?"

Zayn grinned. "I'll let you know when I find her."

Mr. Moriarty nodded, smiling a little bit, and then he suddenly coughed. "Oh, excuse me. Also, another question, Mr. Malik. How do you like that seat? I need that Harry Styles boy to switch with someone, he and _his_ Juliet are far too lovey during class and it's distracting. Wouldn't you agree, Ms. Higgins?"

"Distracting, kind of disgusting, they're interchangeable," Serena said good-naturedly, and Zayn smiled. "I love her to death, but she needs to keep her tongue in her mouth during classes."

"I could not have said it better myself. Now, if you two will excuse me, I need to go make a few copies. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Mr. Moriarty stood up to his full height of just over six feet and walked out of the room with long strides as Zayn turned around in his seat to talk to Serena.

"You do those dance videos I've seen, right?" Zayn asked her.

"Yeah," Serena said proudly with a broad smile. "Do you like to dance?"

"Hahaha! No…I'm in theater, but I'm not a very good dancer. I'm only in ensemble."

"In this year?"

"I'm new."

"I know, but still…they usually consider how much experience you've had in theater over how many years you've been here. That's really weird."

Hearing this made Zayn a little bit uncomfortable, especially since throughout all the work on "Les Miserables" he had felt as if Mr. Flanchez hardly took notice of him, and Jess, Olive, and (sometimes) Ellie were really the only people in theater who seemed to want to help him if he ever had trouble with a dance or something. Anyone else would just laugh or scoff and walk away, muttering about people butting in and "messing with the family". Within the theater group, where Zayn thought he would be accepted, he felt as if he was an outsider trying too hard to fit in.

"So, I see you're Mr. Moriarty's favorite," Serena said lightly. "It must be nice to be a teacher's pet."

"I am not!" Zayn defended, even though he knew she was smiling. "I just like English."

"Ugh, liking school at all isn't something I would be able to fathom."

"Unless they had a dance class?"

Serena smiled. "You catch on quickly, Malik. So, I guess you're going to the Halloween dance tomorrow? The theater kids always have the best costumes. They get together the week before and pick them out from the costumes of old shows."

Zayn had not heard anything about something like that and he felt that same uncomfortable feeling from before coming back to him. "Yeah, I think I'll go. I thought I'd just rip up and old t-shirt and jeans and be a zombie. Olive could do the face paint or something."

"Ooooh, sounds like it won't be scary at all but you'll think it is."

"That's what I was going for. Are you going?"

"Ha! I wish. I'm such a trouble-maker I was banned from the dance."

"You're not going to try to sneak in? I'd do that if I was you."

"I don't want to risk getting into any more trouble before I've finished my sentence. I've still got two more weeks of detention."

"Didn't you get caught with a couple other kids, though? If they're ditching detention, they'll probably be in enough trouble that no one would even care if you went to the dance."

"Oh, they probably wish they were ditching. Maz and Andy are doing their time by volunteering as dance instructors for ballroom dancing for the elderly. They have to dance with all the women who don't have partners."

"Oh, fun," Zayn said dryly.

"The way they describe it, it certainly sounds it." Serena flipped her braid over her shoulder. "You aren't too bad, Malik. I should've talked to you before we were both criminals."

"The feeling's mutual, Higgins."

* * *

Liam woke up on Friday morning, his back stiff from falling asleep in a sitting up position while staring at his phone for three hours the previous night. It had been a week since Liam's mother was diagnosed with a form of leukemia most commonly found in adults. She had immediately been sent in for even more tests and put through many procedures, but Liam's older sisters, Ruth and Nicola, were purposely keeping Liam and his younger sister, Bonnie, in the dark about the whole situation, most likely on their father's orders.

Liam was surprised, when he stood up to stretch out, to find that Andy was up and completely ready, typing something quickly on his computer. He only glanced up a small bit when Liam stood, so he assumed whatever Andy was doing was extremely important, at least to him. A little while later when Liam returned from the bathroom and had changed, Andy finally shut down his laptop and slipped it into his backpack with a small sigh.

"Well, I managed to get out of ballroom dancing lessons this afternoon," Andy said satisfactorily, a smile stretched across his face. "And I managed to get one of the prefects to send me a list of the chaperones for the dance, and it's all the cool teachers, thank God. Higgins won't be there. The only teacher I might need to look out for will be Moriarty."

"Wait…" Liam thought over what Andy had just said, piecing them together. "Are you going to try to sneak into the dance, even though you're banned from it?"

"I didn't already say that?"

"Not in so many words. Are Mazzi and Serena joining you?"

"Maz will be up for anything, and Serena…will be against it because now she's really on a 'I can't disappoint my father' kick, _but_ if a certain handsome young Payne-"

"I'm not even going, Andy."

"That's funny, it sounded as if you just said you weren't going to the Halloween dance, which is the best dance of the whole year."

"I'm sorry, but I just can't go. If Ruth or Nicola called…"

"Hey, it's totally understandable, I just thought it might be good for you to get your mind off of it for a little while."

"I don't think anything will get my mind off of it."

"Not even Serena?"

Liam sighed, throwing the notebook on his desk into his backpack with more force than he intended. "No, not even Serena."

"Are you sure? You never know until you tr-"

"Andy!"

"Listen, I know you, it's not that you think she won't get your mind off of it, it's that you're afraid she will. You don't want to feel guilty. You know your mum wouldn't want you so obsessed about this."

Liam spun quickly. "I don't even know what's going on with her, Andy!"

Andy stood up, stepping toward Liam. "Maybe she wants it that way!"

"Oh, and since when are you taking up residence inside my mum's brain?!"

"Snap out of it, Liam! You're getting behind on schoolwork, you haven't gone to track practice in a week, and this is the first time I've gotten more than a two word response from you in weeks! I was beginning to think no one remembered what your voice sounded like!"

"Maybe you'd hear it more if you weren't off getting detention every other day!"

"I got detention for something I did weeks ago! And guess what? I had damn fun doing it. Fun! When was the last time you had fun, Liam?!"

Liam sank down onto his bed, the thin old mattress sagging below him as he put his head in his hands. "I don't even know."

"Then go to the dance, man. Dance with Serena. Have fun. Think of how happy your mum will be when you see her next and you tell her about all the fun times you hade this term, and your unbeatable track records, and your new girlfriend, and-"

"Pardon me, new what?"

"Are you hungry? I need breakfast. And you'll need to get to work on a costume ASAP. You've got," Andy checked his watch, "just over twelve hours before the dance starts."

For a split second Liam felt a sense of panic, but it immediately vanished when he spotted a roll of toilet paper, which he and Andy used for tissues since it was softer, lying on the corner of his desk. He had a pair of black pants and a black t-shirt he could just throw on, and then he could have Andy help wrap him up in some toilet paper before they headed off to the dance. Admittedly, it would be pretty lame, and he feared for a moment if Serena might find it mediocre or even kind of gross, but he quickly pushed the thought from his mind when he remembered how Serena was. She liked simple costumes the best, because they were usually the more traditional ones.

"Hey, Serena," Liam said as he and Andy joined Serena, Cher, and Maz at their usual table once they had gotten breakfast. "Hey, Cher, Maz."

"Preposterous," Maz grunted. "Cher and I have to share a greeting while Serena gets one of her own."

"Absolutely ridiculous," Cher agreed through a mouthful of bacon as Serena grew a little bit pink.

"So, are you guys ready for the Halloween dance?" Liam asked, just to change the subject.

"We're not going," Serena said glumly. She looked at Maz and Andy before adding, with much more force than before, "_We are not going._"

"Well, Buck and I-"

"Are riding magical unicorns," Maz began.

"In a field of ever-lasting love," Andy concluded. At the same time, both he and Maz made gagging noises. "You two disgust me with your love and your relationship. Singles rule!"

"Yeah, buddy!" Maz high-fived Andy before turning back to a now very annoyed looking Cher. "You were saying, Cher?"

"I was saying," Cher continued, "that Buck and I are going as beauty and the beast."

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Serena said dryly. "Now, what are you to going to the dance as?"

"Four points for you Serena!" Maz shouted, making a few people at the table next to them turn and stare.

"You go Serena!" Andy yelled, making them all laugh.

"What are you going as?" Cher asked Liam across the table, ignoring Serena, Andy, and Maz.

"A mummy…" Liam muttered, now feeling as if his costume was lame compared to Cher's couple costume with Buck. "How good is your costume?"

"It's terrible. The only good part is Buck's mask." She snapped her head quickly to look at Serena, who was biting her lip to keep from talking. "And _not_ because it covers his face!"

"What ever would make you think I would say such a thing about our dear friend Buck?" Serena asked, smiling and batting her eyelashes. "We just all love him so dearly."

"No, we don't," Andy, Maz, and Liam said in unison.

"You all have serious issues," Cher said with a small huff as she stood up, picking her tray up, too. "He's an amazing guy and a great boyfriend."

"I'm pretty sure the only thing he's ever heard you say is 'Hi, I'm Cher'," Liam pointed out, to which Andy, Serena, and Maz all nodded vigorously. "I don't think I can remember a time when he ever cancelled his plans to spend time with you, but you're always making your schedule around him."

"He's busy!"

"It's not lacrosse season."

"And Lord knows he doesn't care about his studies _that_ much," Maz added.

"You know what? Buck and I are going to win the award for best couple costume, and everyone knows that whoever wins that stays together until they're ninety-five with six children and too many grandchildren to remember all their names!" Cher practically shouted, completely out of breath, before hurrying off to put her empty dishes and try on the conveyor belt leading back into the kitchen near the door.

"We were just being honest," Liam muttered, taking a bite out of an apple. "He's not a bad lad, it's just…"

"He doesn't treat her the way he should," Serena finished, taking the words right out of his mouth. "You should give him some lessons, Liam."

"Why?"

"Well, you would treat any girl you were with well."

Liam glanced up to see the look on her face as she said this, but she was already facing down again to shovel the last bits of her cereal into her mouth in a rush before she would have to go cross-campus to get to her first class. "I would."

* * *

"Ugh," Francis said, ending the call he had just taken in the corner of the common room before moving to fall into the seat next to Louis on the couch. "My little sister Olive keeps calling me to find out what my costume is."

"Why?" Louis asked curiously.

"I don't know; everyone around here is obsessed with their costumes for the dance. What are you go-…Sorry, I forgot."

Do to an unfortunate event when he had been caught putting itching powder onto the shin guards of some of the first years a few weeks before, Louis had been banned from the school dance along with Darrell. Besides being banned from that, being stripped of his title as co-captain, gaining three weeks of detention, and getting an extremely long, very loud lecture from his uncle, he would be unable to woo Eleanor off her feet, as had been his plan for the dance. Louis mentally kicked himself again as he looked around the common room at the girls in their huddles, talking about the details of their costumes, and the boys hastily running around to find help with a part of their costume they could not handle themselves, such as sewing sleeves on. A boy whose dorm was on Louis's floor strolled by wearing a giant beast mask, and Louis would not have recognized him if he had not pulled it off just before going up the stairs to get to his room. Behind him, a blond Irish boy named Niall from the soccer team followed, a plastic and very tacky looking crown set crooked on his head.

"Hmmmm…" Louis murmured softly as he stretched his arm on the back of the couch, looking thoughtfully at where the boy in the mask had just been.

"Something on your mind, mate?" Francis asked, looking up curiously from his laptop that he now had open on the coffee table in front of him, editing a piece for the next edition of the school's newspaper that was due to be out the following week.

"Maybe I could get into the dance…if I wasn't recognizable."

That really caught Francis's attention, even causing him to go so far as saving his document and closing his laptop before turning to face Louis. "I mean, the teachers chaperoning aren't going to be any strict teachers, except Moriarty, and your uncle won't be there, but-"

"Exactly! What could possibly go wrong?"

"One of the teachers could recognize you and get you even more detention, maybe even a suspension."

"Pft, I won't get caught. Your sister has been in theater here for a while, right?"

"Maybe. Why?"

"Well, she'll be trusted in the costumes closet, so…"

"What are you planning, Tommo?"

"You'll get the punchline soon enough, Francis. Tell your sister to meet me at the theater in fifteen minutes."

"I'm not about to-"

"Do you want Eleanor and I to live happily ever after?"

Francis just rolled his eyes before pulling out his phone to text his sister as Louis headed toward the door of the common room. While walking toward the theater at a leisurely stroll, Louis passed by Eleanor with a group of her friends, but he only smiled and waved because he did not want to reveal his plan to her already, just in case it did not work out well. Louis let a breath he did not realize he had been holding escape his lips as he saw Francis's little sister, Olive, saunter into the lobby of the theater.

"Louis?" she asked in a slightly bored tone, clearly thinking she had someplace better to be.

"Yeah, I'm sorry to bother you, it's just I really need a way into the dance," Louis said quickly, running out of breath a little, "and I thought a costume might-"

"It's fine, just follow me." After Louis's clear gratitude toward her and the small apology for interrupting whatever she had been doing, her tone was much more welcoming and warm. "The closet usually isn't locked."

"At my old school they had like triple locks on it." Louis followed Olive as she brought him back around behind the stage in the auditorium and led him to a set of double doors near the end of a hallway that was lined with empty clothes racks.

"Why?"

"To keep people like me out."

Louis smirked as Olive laughed and pulled open the large double doors, revealing a large room filled with every sort of costume Louis could possibly imagine. His smirk quickly shifted into a genuine smile as his eyes fell upon the shirt he was looking for. As he walked toward it, Olive followed him, probably afraid he might try to ruin or damage something while he was there if left unattended.

"Give that to Francis to give to me tomorrow morning," Olive said sternly. "I shouldn't even be letting you do this, but…"

"Hey, us theater kids gotta help each other out, right?" Louis asked, pulling on the shirt over his own to see how it fit. The sleeves were a bit short, but that would not be too much of a problem.

"You're interested in theater?"

"Yeah, I was going to do the winter and spring term plays." Louis spun in a full circle, scanning all along the tables against the walls for the mask he needed. "I wished I could have done 'Les Miserables' and football, too, just to get to know some of the people."

"Pft, it won't matter when you join; if it wasn't in first year, you won't be accepted by anyone."

Louis turned to Olive, surprised. "Really?"

Olive scoffed, folding her arms and leaning against a nearby table. "It doesn't matter how good you are, everyone here thinks they're better than you if you haven't been in all the school plays together. And if you quit…" Olive whistled, shaking her head. "This girl, Cher Lloyd, she quit a couple years ago to focus solely on music, and I swear to this day that Ellie still wants to murder her. They feel like you've left the family or something, and trying to join is like intruding on the family. I feel bad for my friend Zayn…he's good, but he would be great if the others gave him some support to just boost his confidence a little."

"There it is!" Louis exclaimed, rushing over to a table to pick up the mask, trying it on without a second thought.

"Oi, this is a little random, but do you know a kid named Graham?"

Louis turned to Olive with the mask still on. "On the football team? Yeah, he's good."

"Oh…I was just wondering. Well, I guess you're all set, unless you want the tigh-"

"No, no, I'll just wear my blue pants. Thanks for you help, Olive."

"No, problem, Tomlinson. I really like the costume. The Joker…it fits you."

* * *

"What the bloody hell?" Harry muttered as someone dressed in blue jeans, a bright multi-colored shirt with a color, and a large joker's mask with the hat attached ran right by the line to push some a ticket to the dance into the hand of the teacher at the door before entering the party. The teacher, laughing, just shrugged and held out his hand to the next student in line.

"Well, that was…interesting," Lauren remarked before adjusting the halo and long white skirt of her angel outfit. Coincidentally, Langston's costume was a devil, but the twins did not seem to find the irony in it at all. "Ugh, how long is this line?"

"Um…" Billy said, lifting his cowboy hat and looking out over the heads of the people in the line in front of them. "There are about twenty people ahead of us."

"I wish they were all first years so we could just plow right through them."

"I wish they were hot girls so I could just plow right through _them_," Langston remarked, smirking on his painted red face.

"Langston!" Lauren shouted indignantly. "Don't talk about women in that way! It's very degrading!"

"You wouldn't want to objectify them like that," Harry said sagely as the whole group shuffled forward a little bit in line. Harry tugged absently at the fake broken handcuffs around his wrists to go with his prisoner costume. "I feel really bad that Molly can't come…she wouldn't even let me into the dorm…"

"She's been sick since last night," Lauren said, her tone of concern matching Harry's. "I can't exactly say I didn't see it coming…"

Harry nodded. Within the past few weeks, Harry had noticed that Molly's face had looked very gaunt, her eyes usually with dark circles underneath. She had been looking even thinner than usual, too, and Harry was worried that stress from their increasing workload as the year went on was starting to get to Molly. Whenever he tried to bring it up, she would either find an excuse to leave or quickly change the subject so she would not have to talk about it.

"Maybe a good night's rest would do her good…" Harry added hopefully.

"Maybe it would do you good, too," Langston put in, elbowing Harry lightly in the ribs.

"Shut up," Harry and Lauren snapped at the same time.

"Harry wouldn't do that to Molly," Lauren added quickly. "Right, Styles?"

"Of course not," Harry responded just as quickly and sincerely. "I would never."

"Good answer."

"This line better hurry up…" Billy muttered to himself, clearly having not heard any of the conversation they just had. "I need to take pictures for the school paper."

"Just sneak up to the front," Langston suggested. "Say you're on the newspaper staff and they'll let you in."

"I don't want to cut all these people! They'll chop my head off!" Billy pointed dramatically into the decorated gymnasium. "And they even have a guillotine to do it!"

"That's fake and the blade is made of foam. Let's go."

With Billy still protected, Langston latched onto his shoulder and steered him toward the table where the teacher let them right through after Billy held up his camera and said something quickly. For a few minutes Harry and Lauren just moved forward in the line slowly, both of them looking at the decorations and listening to the music being played by the DJ who was at the opposite side of the gymnasium from the doors everyone was going in through.

"You really care about Molly, don't you?" Lauren asked.

The question was so sudden it took Harry by surprise for a moment before he finally got his wits together, answering her steadily. "Yeah, I do. She's really special."

"She most certainly is."

"It's been a while since I liked someone this much."

"You better hold onto her then."

"I definitely will."

"Besides being special, she's also my best friend."

"Yeah, I know."

"So, if you hurt her, I will personally strip every muscle off your body with my bare hands."

Harry glanced at Lauren uncomfortably, taking a small step away from her. "Um…"

"And don't think I can't. We do a half-hour of conditioning on top of choreography everyday."

"Ticket?" the teacher asked the blond boy in front of Harry, who Harry knew was named Niall because they sat in the same row in history, as he walked up to the table.

"Here!" Harry blurted, jumping forward and cutting the boy off to throw his ticket forward.

Before the teacher could say anything, Harry sped off to find Billy and Langston again as Lauren laughed good-naturedly behind him.

* * *

"Hey! Nialler!" Geoffrey called from a few feet away once Niall had walked into the gymnasium after being cut off at the ticket table by a boy from his history class.

"Hey, man," Niall greeted with a smile as he strolled over to where Geoffrey was standing with Graham, a girl Niall also had history with right next to him. Niall recognized her as Olive, and he noticed the profound blush spring up on Graham's cheeks when Niall gave a pointed look between Graham and Olive.

"Niall, this is Olive; Olive, this is Graham," Geoffrey introduced as Graham looked down at his shoes, biting his lip.

"Olive? I've heard a lot about you."

Olive smiled, looking from Graham to Niall. "This should be fun to hear," Olive said dryly, and Niall saw Graham go just a bit of a darker red as Olive put a hand on his shoulder. "What exactly did our great friend Graham over here say about me?"

"He just said you're gorgeous."

At this Olive blushed so her cheeks were, somehow, twice as red as Graham's. She looked around frantically, quickly locating a subject to change the conversation to. "Is that Cher Lloyd? Oh…she's with Buck. I don't get why she's still with him. She can do so much better than him."

Niall just nodded, feeling a slight pang of guilt that he did not stand up for Buck against what Olive had said, but it was not the first time in the past few weeks that he had heard someone say that. He also knew that if he turned to look in the direction of where Olive's eyes were looking, he would feel much more than a slight pang inside him. He was forced to look, however, as the whole group he was with shifted to get a better vantage point of his year's most talked about and criticized couple at the first major school event.

Everyone who was watching Buck and Cher as a small circle formed around them seemed to be more interested in Buck's giant, furry beast mask that covered his whole face. Niall, however, was captivated entirely by how stunning Cher looked in her strapless yellow dress that went to about her mid-thigh, which she had paired with a pair of yellow heels. Her hair was pulled back in a loose braid, held in place by a shimmery gold ribbon.

Niall felt as if he just _had_ to walk up to Cher, but he did not know what to say or do, and his feet felt as if they were glued to the ground. One of Buck's friends from the lacrosse team suddenly jumped on his back and pulled him away from Cher, who now seemed to be looking around for someone, clearly unaware that she was at the very center of the circle that had formed. Now that Buck had once again proven his ability to ditch his own girlfriend without a second thought, everyone watching them lost interest and began to turn around or walk away.

Niall waited until everyone had turned their attention away from Cher, which he found impossible to do given how beautiful he thought she looked, before walking across the empty circle to meet her in the middle. He had just reached her and was opening his mouth to give a simple friendly greeting when the song suddenly changed to "The Way You Look Tonight". Niall's throat closed as he stared down at Cher, the music and her face the only things present in his mind.

"Do you want to dance with me?" Niall blurted before he did something possibly even more stupid than that that he would regret.

"Niall, I can't," Cher responded after a short moment of hesitation, her words very reluctant. "I mean, I would love to, it's just, I'm here with Buck and that would be really awk-"

With that, Niall had had enough. "He's not even here! He left you to go do his own thing! _Again_!"

Cher was seriously taken aback and affronted. "Niall! I've never seen you this way."

"Yeah, well, there are a lot of ways you haven't seen me, Cher!"

"Maybe we should keep it that way!"

"Maybe we shouldn't always do what you want, because it's never even what you actually want!"

"What the hell are you even talking about?!"

At that moment the DJ screwed something up and set the strobes lights off, which no one really minded because just about everyone absolutely loved them. Through the lights, Niall caught fleeting, flashing glimpses of Cher's voice as she stared at him with an expectant look on her face. He knew she was expecting a response to her question, but he was so worked up he could not think straight; certainly not rationally, at least.

Before Niall even realized what he was doing, he reached out and grabbed Cher's hands, pulling her closer to him as he put a hand behind her neck to tilt her head up so he could kiss her. In the strobe lights, no one could see them. Or, if they could see them, they could not tell who the two people kissing were. It was not Cher that pulled away a few seconds later, but Niall, his stomach filled with an unpleasant feeling of guilt as he stared back down at Cher.

"I'm so sorry," he said in one big rush. "I am so, so sorry."

"Got caught up in the moment again?" Cher asked, trying to sound bitter and biting. "Don't do it again."

Cher started to walk away just as the strobe lights went off, causing a groan to rise up throughout the entire crowd of people in attendance. Niall fixed the plastic crown on top of his head as he stared at the yellow dress and gold ribbon disappeared into the crowd, in search of the beast they felt obliged to. Geoffrey came up to Niall to tell him they were selling candy apples on the other side of the gymnasium, but Niall hardly heard him.

"Hey, what's the matter?" Geoffrey asked, seeing the look on Niall's face. "Did the prince lose his princess?"

"No," Niall said quietly as he was directed toward the candy apples. "The prince never had the princess."

* * *

I settled into my chair near the bottom bunk with the book I had to read for Moriarity's class at about ten-thirty, an hour and a half before the dance was scheduled to end (the Halloween dance always went until midnight, which is why none of the older teachers ever chaperoned it). I had just opened up to the page that my bookmark was on when suddenly my door flew open, Andy and Maz walking in dramatically with ski masks on their heads.

"We are your fairy godparents!" Maz informed me as he approached, tearing the book out of my hand and throwing it on my bunk.

"Hey!" I shouted.

"Shut up, your fairy godfather is talking."

"Hey, I thought _I_ was the godfather and _you_ were the godmother," Andy said furiously. "Why do I have to be the godmother?"

"You're more…feminine."

"I despise that! I am perfectly masculine!" Andy shook his head before turning to face me. "We are your fairy-"

"Andy, Maz, what are you doing?" I asked bluntly, cutting him off.

"We aren't…oh, it's not worth it," Maz decided pulling his ski mask off at the same time as Andy. "Up, up, now, we haven't got all night."

"We aren't doing a video," I said firmly, reaching out to take my book back but Maz hit it away from me. "Maz!"

"We're kidnapping you and taking you to the dance."

"We can't go! If we get caught-"

"We won't," Andy tried to assure me.

"That's what you said about the video, and look where _that_ got us."

"None of the teachers will notice. Maz and I went for a few minutes just to test it out, and no one even cared. Come on, Serena, you can't just stay in your dorm while everyone else is off having a great time."

"I _can_ and I _will_ because I'm grounded. Besides, Louis isn't going."

"Yes, he is!" Maz exclaimed triumphantly. "We saw him there trying to chat up lovely Miss Eleanor Calder. He was doing a very nice job, wasn't he, Andy?"

"He sure was, Maz," Andy agreed.

"He was there?" I asked them both, and they nodded vigorously in return.

"So, you see, you would be letting your family down if you didn't go," Maz tried, but I just glared at him. "Please, Serena, go, it would make you happy, me happy, Andy happy, Liam happy, and-"

I groaned before saying, "I guess I'll go."

"Yes! Trust me, you won't regret it."

"Unless we get caught."

"We won't!" Maz called back to me as he walked hurriedly out the door.

I got up from the chair slowly and took a step toward the door when Andy suddenly reached out, unbuttoning the second button of my white school blouse and tugging the shirt a little so the next two buttons came undone.

"Andy!" I shouted, grabbing my shirt and pulling it closed. "What the he-…that was like three buttons in one shot. How did you do that?"

Andy shrugged. "You needed to look as if you were wearing a costume of some sort. Sexy schoolgirl was about the only thing available at the moment."

I buttoned my shirt back up. "We'll just go with schoolgirl."

"Well, you're no fun."

I glared at Andy before going over to my closet, stepping into a pair of black pumps and rolling my skirt once more. I unbuttoned the next to buttons below the already unbuttoned top button and rolled my sleeves up. I turned to Andy, arms outstretched as I raised my eyebrows for a critique.

"Given the time crunch, it'll do," Andy decided after a few moments.

"Says the boy who put on black jeans and a black t-shirt with a ski mask and called himself a robber," I said lightly as we left the room and headed down the stairs into the common room.

"Correction, we are night-shadow ninjas."

"You're idiots, that's what you are."

Andy and I left the building, heading toward the gymnasium where we could already hear the music coming from even though we were quite a distance away. "We are not!"

"I believe you are."

Andy chased me the rest of the way to the gymnasium, which was very unfair considering I was wearing heels. We managed to get in by slipping right through the entrance doors that had already been closed, and no teachers were standing near it when we went in. Maz, who had already been back for a little while, led us excitedly over to where Cher and Liam already were. I just managed to get a small smile in before Liam stepped away with a quick apology to everyone, pulling out his phone and walking toward a corner as he covered his ear.

"Glad to see you could make it," Cher said, but her voice sounded different somehow, even if I could not quite tell how.

"Me, too," I responded. "The costume came out great, huh?"

"Yeah…"

Cher was quiet and distant after that, constantly looking around. When I glanced over at the corner Liam had been in, I did not see him at all. Maz and Andy left us after a little while, too, to go bob for apples, but Maz returned shortly after failing at all his attempts. Andy, however, was not giving up until he was the champion of bobbing for apples, as Maz explained to us. When I looked back over my shoulder I thought I saw Liam but quickly looked away, not wanting to stare or be caught staring by him. I was about to chance another glance back when the strobe lights started up, promptly followed by a cheer from everyone in the room except Cher and me, both of us groaning quietly. Why was Cher so upset? What had happened before I got to the dance?

I did not have long to dwell on these thoughts as suddenly behind me I felt someone press against my back, placing their hands on my hips. I was turning my head to see who it was when they put their lips against my ear to whisper, "Is it sad how long I've waited for this chance?" I could not help but gasp a little bit when I realized it was Liam's voice that had spoken. I was unable to respond as he began to dance, moving his hands around my waist and onto my legs a little. Throughout the whole song I could not shake the feeling of pleasant butterflies in my stomach and of being wrapped in a large, warm, safe blanket on a really cold day, the smile on my face feeling as if it would be there permanently.

When the song ended, I felt Liam starting to back away, his hands starting to pull back from my waist. Before he let go, though, he placed a kiss on my neck, causing a chill to go up my spine and goose-bumps to form all over my arms even though I was now boiling. I spun around quickly to see Liam, planning on pulling him back, but the strobe lights made me dizzy when I spun so quickly and why the time my eyes were focused again he was nowhere in sight. I turned back to a still very somber looking Cher as the strobe lights died down and went out, the normal very dim lighting returning.

"What's up with you?" I asked Cher as a new song began. "You seem really off."

"I'm just tired," Cher used as an excuse, even though she was avoiding eye contact with me and I knew she was clearly lying. "I really don't want to talk about it now, okay?"

Despite all my instincts telling me to question her more, I did not. "Okay, whatever you want."

About half-way through the song I felt someone tap me on the shoulder, and I spun around quickly, one of the biggest smiles I had ever had stretching across my face when I saw that the person standing there was just who I had been hoping for. He held out a small plastic cup to me as he took a sip of his own.

"I just went to get a drink," he said loudly over the music. "I thought you might want one."

"Cheers," I said, just as loudly so he would be able to here me. "That was, um, a good dance."

"Yeah…yeah, it was."

* * *

These are the links to Cher's outfit:

Dress: clothes-dresses/alan-dress

Shoes: shoe/c+label+jocelyn-47+pump?prodId=243786&productRef=SEARCH

So what did you think? How did you like it?


	7. Chapter 6

"So today is the day Americans give thanks?" Molly asked Harry as Lauren, Molly, and Serena sat around him on a couch in the library. Molly was lying down on the couch with her feet up on Harry's lap while Lauren sat on the floor near where Molly's head was and Serena sat on the back in the very center. "What do they give thanks for?"

"Fast food?" Harry suggested, shrugging. "Hey, Serena, what'd you get on the last test we had on maths?"

Serena scoffed, rolling her eyes. "What do you think? That test was so easy."

"Oh, erm, yeah, definitely."

"It shouldn't even have counted; I could have done all that in primary school."

"Um…yeah." Harry awkwardly bit his lip as he looked away, now remembering why he talked to Serena about everything except maths, one of the two classes they had together. "What about the quiz in English?" Serena and Harry had studied for the quiz together the day before they took it while Molly and Lauren studied for an English test of their own. "Did you do just as well on that?"

"Yeah, it wasn't very hard. What about you?"

"I did alright."

"Yeah, I mean, I don't think I got top grades, but the only person who does in that class is Zayn."

Harry nodded, knowing Serena's friend Zayn Malik was definitely Mr. Moriarty's favorite, and no one could deny why. "Isn't he in like theater or something?"

"Yup, they're putting on 'Les Miserables' in two weeks I believe. Are you guys going?"

"I might," Lauren admitted, looking up from her science textbook for a moment to answer. "I mean, we might have way more practices for cheerleading coming up soon…"

"When's the competition?" Harry asked curiously, even though his attention was slowly drifting back to the notes in front of him.

"Three weeks, last Friday before Christmas holiday," Molly responded, now setting down her own set of notes. "I'm really nervous."

"You'll do fine, babe," Harry assured her, rubbing her leg gently with his hand and smiling at her.

Molly smiled back, her cheeks a brighter pink and fuller than they had been just a little under a month ago when she had become terribly sick with a bad stomach bug and sent to the infirmary. Apparently her immune system was very weak, causing her to not be able to fight off the disease as effectively as she should have, and she had only returned to practices and classes the previous week. Harry had been nothing but anxious and jumpy the whole time she was in the hospital, and somewhere in the back of his mind a sneaking suspicion from the beginning of the year had begun to form again, but he had shot it down quickly, not wanting to think like that. During his visiting hours, Harry was often joined by Serena and Lauren, both of whom he had become even more friendly with since first meeting both of them. Sometimes Serena would even sit at their table in the cafeteria with them if the other people at her table were busy with other things, but since she had begun "officially" dating Liam Payne a couple weeks before, she usually sat at her table.

"We've got the best team we've had in years," Lauren pointed out, chewing on the end of her pencil as she tried to concentrate on something on the page as she was distracted by the conversation. "No one can deny that."

"The judges can," Serena said with a bitter tone Harry had never heard from her before. "They did last year."

"We came in second!"

"Which isn't first."

Even if Harry had never known Serena to be bitter, he had picked up that she could be a bit competitive, and that she was extremely passionate about dance. "Well, now you know what the judges are looking for," Harry tried to point out, but Serena would have none of it.

"We didn't work hard enough last year. Ugh, if I had only learned that routine better last year…"

"You've always been the best at every routine, don't beat yourself up for no reason," Molly told her calmly. "As long as you're there, we'll definitely win. First place this time."

Serena sighed, hunching her shoulders of slightly as she let out the breath. "I hope so. There's no way my dad will even let me consider applying as a dance major at any universities if he doesn't have some sort of proof that I could go somewhere with it."

"Because those videos you and the boys make are no proof at all."

"I don't think he's ever watched them. He wants me to have a 'sensible' career."

"I think, for you, dancing is a perfectly sensible career," Lauren said honestly and sincerely. "I mean, really, you could get a job pretty much anywhere you auditioned as a backup dancer for a band or a dancer in a video. You already have some of the best choreography skills I've ever seen." Serena opened her mouth to say something, but Lauren quickly looked at her watch and cut her off. "Oh, look at that, time for practice. Let's go, girls."

Serena and Lauren cleared out of there quickly, but Molly took her time packing her things before kissing Harry briefly on the cheek and walking away. For a moment, Harry was totally stunned, but not the kind of stunned that is always visible to others. He watched Molly walk away in a rush so she would not be late to practice, but his paranoia was already kicking in now that she had kissed him on the cheek instead of on the lips, as she usually did. Did he say something wrong? Had he not paid enough attention to her? Was he a bad kisser and she was trying to get off on being in a rush? Did his breath smell bad? Did _he_ smell bad? Harry took a swift, furtive glance around the entire library before raising his arm a bit and tilting his head down, taking a quick whiff of his underarms. B.O. definitely was not the problem, so what was?

"Smell like chicken?" Langston asked, jumping over the back of the couch to sit next to Harry.

"Or more along the lines of pork?" Billy asked, falling into the armchair next to the couch as he placed his backpack and camera on the ground next to him.

"What?" Harry asked nonchalantly, trying to act as if he had no idea what they were talking about.

"Come on, you can't expect to take a sniff of your pits and not expect someone to notice."

"We won't judge you," Langston told Harry. "At least, not too harshly."

"Do you think Molly isn't interested in me?"

Langston smirked, looking as if he had received an early Christmas present. "Personally, I don't see why she was interested in you in the first place. You're not very charming, or very handsome, you know?"

"Don't listen to him," Billy muttered, picking up his camera again and looking at the screen that was displaying previous shots he had taken.

"No, seriously, it was really weird when she left. She usually gives me a kiss, like a kiss kiss, but she just gave me a kiss on the cheek."

"Maybe she was in a hurry."

"It's never been a problem before."

"I really don't think there's a problem here," Langston said. "And it's definitely not because you smell bad. She would have left you ages ago if that was the case."

"I'm probably just overthinking this," Harry mumbled, gathering up his notes and notebooks to put in his book bag.

"I mean, the problem may not be you. She might be going through some personal stuff. Just be careful, though, I mean given her history and all."

Harry paused, collecting from the tone of Langston's voice that he was not just talking about Molly having a very bad stomach virus. "What do you mean, 'her history'?"

Langston and Billy exchanged an uncertain glance before both of them looked back at Harry with even more uncertainty. "Um…" Billy began slowly, turning his camera off as he leaned forward, lowering his voice. "Has Molly told you about her…problems?"

"Problems? What problems?"

"Well, uh…for the past couple years she's been fighting on and off with eating disorders. Everyone was afraid that was what was happening again at the end of October, but she was just sick. The eating disorders are what weakened her immune system. It was really bad. She got sick all the time and she must have passed out at least three times."

"It was scary," Langston confessed. "She was always so carefree, and then just one day she became obsessed with her weight and stopped eating. For a while it was anorexia, and then she tried bulimia. For the past two years, Serena and Lauren have been having a right deal of a time trying to keep her healthy. It all stopped after the last Christmas holiday, after she went to a few seminars and took a class on self-confidence and self-acceptance or something. It's just really scary to see a friend like that, so self-destructive."

Harry just stared at Langston and Billy for a few seconds, absorbing what they were saying very slowly. His brain seemed to have stopped functioning for a few minutes as he continued to stare at them, a blank expression on his face. His jaw slowly set into a determined line as he stood up stiffly, throwing his backpack over his shoulder quite violently before walking out of the library at a speedy and brisk pace. Once Harry was outside, he broke into a run, panting for air as he came to a halt in the gym lobby, wishing maybe he had gone a bit slower up the steps outside.

"Harry?" Molly asked, her eyes widened in surprise as she walked out of the hallway leading into the girls' locker room, fully dressed for cheerleading practice.

Harry did not know what he was doing exactly, but he felt his feet walking toward Molly and then he had pulled her against him so tightly he was afraid he might break one of her bones, kissing her. It was not until he pulled away from her a little while later that he realized there was a group of people staring at him and Molly, a few even clapping once he was done. Molly just stared up at him, her eyes even wider than they had been before.

"You just forgot something," Harry told her breathlessly. "That."

"Do that more often," Molly finally said, breaking into a broad grin. "Please."

* * *

"Well, well, well," Louis heard his cousin Serena saying as she strolled into his common room where he was sitting at his usual table with Francis and Darrell, "if it isn't my delinquent cousin."

"What do you want?" Louis asked her glumly, not in the mood to deal with her, or people in general, at the moment.

"I just wanted to see how you were doing now that the season's over."

"The season ended for me almost a month ago."

"Oh, we all know you've been sneaking into practices and going to all the games."

"I wish I hadn't been at the championship."

"Yeah, I heard it was pretty ugly."

"Hey!" Darrell said defensively, but then he sighed and decided it was not worth it. "Never mind, it was atrocious…"

"Maybe if a certain co-captain hadn't-"

"I don't need to hear it, Serena!"

"You shouldn't be off sneaking into dances you aren't allowed at, then."

"If I recall correctly, I saw you there, and you looked pret-ty cozy with that boy you were with."

"Okay, I was technically forced to go against my will, and I at least had the sensibility not to wear such an attention-catching costume."

"It had a mask! Also, if I recall something else correctly, you were the one dressed as a slut."

"So I blended with every other girl there."

"Not every other girl."

"Awwww, listen to ickle boobear pining away for his dear Eleanor."

Louis's jaw nearly dropped in shock as he looked at Serena. "First of all, do not call me boober. Second of all, how did you kn-"

"Everyone knows."

"But-"

"_Everyone_."

"Hey, Serena, do you know Billy in your year?" Francis suddenly asked Serena as he looked up from his pad of paper he was writing on.

"Nope, sorry. My friend Harry is really good friends with him though."

"I guess I'll have to give him the message myself, then. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye." Francis stood up, throwing his book bag over his shoulder carelessly as he walked away. "And everyone does know, Lou!"

Serena laughed as Louis showed some signs of being embarrassed, something he nearly never was. "So, what are you planning on doing now with all your free time?"

"Well, I have detention until holiday," Louis responded, now back to his previous glum tone. "If I do anything before holiday I'll get suspended, or expelled, depending on how serious the offense."

"Sounds as if they're expecting you to do something bad."

"Well…" Darrell said slowly, but Louis shot him a look that quickly shut him up and made him look down at his laptop again.

"I thought I'd audition for the winter term play," Louis added. "I heard they're doing 'Grease' then."

"Oh…" Serena muttered. "Well…I mean, I've just heard that the theater kids can be a bit…aloof…and standoffish…and kind of rude…to people who haven't been in theater for years."

"I'm sure I'll mingle just fine."

"It's really not entirely up to you, though. They don't like people trespassing on their territory."

Louis just rolled his eyes. "Too bad for them, I'm still auditioning."

With that, Louis pushed away from the table and walked toward the common room door, running into Eleanor on his way out. Eleanor had been busy with a project for her political science class for the past couple weeks so Louis had not seen her as much as he would have liked, so he took advantage of every time he was able to see her. He still had not actually asked her to go out or anything like that, but somehow seeing just how happy Serena was now in her relationship with Liam Payne, he wanted more than ever to ask Eleanor. Maybe now was his chance, maybe now he would be able to-

"Hey, Lou," Eleanor said in a rush. "I'd love to chat, I really would, but I need to meet my partner in like thirty seconds, and if I'm late she'll be so pissed and-"

"It's fine," Louis said, adding in a small good-natured laugh despite the fact that at the moment he would have loved to punch someone. "Go, work on your project."

Eleanor hesitated for a moment before giving Louis a smile and running off, looking back a few times. As Louis left the common room, he saw his roommate Howard walking in, looking high as usual. Louis knew Howard had been caught on various occasions with weed, but he had yet to be expelled. Louis did not know how it was that Howard could constantly be caught with drugs and have no severe consequences whereas Louis just had good times and fun and was being threatened with possible expulsion. All he wanted to do was live his life and not regret anything, which was becoming increasingly harder the longer he stayed at St. Germaine's Academy.

* * *

"Marius!" Liam shouted threateningly. "Give me back the phone before I make you smell my running sneakers!"

Maz rolled his eyes before reluctantly throwing Liam back his phone so he could resume his usual position of sitting on the bed, waiting and watching the phone. Whenever Liam was not in school, doing homework, at practice, or with Serena, he was in that exact same position, never moving. Half the time he did not even listen to music, not wanting anything to get in the way of him hearing the phone go off.

"This isn't healthy, Liam," Maz said, nudging Liam on the shoulder. "Come on, we haven't got much longer before Christmas holiday. We need to make the best of it."

"I have three weeks before I get to see my mum," Liam said firmly. "I don't intend on wasting it."

"You think you aren't wasting your time? You don't spend nearly as much time with Serena as you'd like to, Lord knows that because you're always complaining about that, and you've cut your training time nearly in two. Do you expect to stay on the Olympics reserve list like this?"

"There are more important things than the Olympics, Maz!"

Maz wiped his face with his hands in exasperation before sitting across from Liam, causing the old dorm bed to squeak. "Listen, Andy and I were thinking about a holiday themed dance video, and we were wondering if you'd like to, you know, be in it."

"I don't think I should. I'm not nearly as good as you three, and Serena won't be able to either. She has cheerleading practice and their final competition of the season is on the last Friday before holiday. She'll be too busy, too."

"Okay, I wasn't asking you about Serena. I was asking you about _you_. You do realize that you're a human being, right? And you have to come in contact with people and actually do things in life, right?"

Liam glared at Maz. "I do plenty of things and come in contact with plenty of people. Stop worrying."

"You aren't making it easy to not worry. You're borderline obsessed with this whole thing. I understand you're concerned about your mum, we all are, but you can't stay in here staring at your phone all day and night. Come on, do the video, you'll feel better."

Liam juggled with this for a few moments before finally deciding, "I'll consider it and maybe do the video. My training _has_ been cut in half lately, and I need to get back up to the usual time."

"Yes, you do, because your mum is going to get better very soon and once she does, you want to be able to make her proud."

Liam smiled, glad to have Maz around to cheer him up a bit and help him refocus. "You're right. I think I'm going to go for an extra run right now, actually. Want to join me, Maz?"

"Hahaha! Oh, Liam, your sense of humor always gets me." Maz wiped at the corner of his eyes as he laughed, standing up again. "Besides, I'm already late meeting Andy over at the arts building. One of his friends was showing him a new software to mix music and we were going to pick out a song for the video."

"What's the video going to be?"

"We don't know yet, probably a holiday themed one. Serena's really busy right now so she just left everything up to us to decide."

"Are we having a lead dancer?"

"We haven't decided yet; we will when we pick the song. Want me to text you our top five choices and you can help decide? You know, after you take the initiative to be healthy and actually exercise? Ugh, exercise such a horrible word."

Liam somehow managed to frown and smile at the same time as he looked up at Maz. "Sure, text me the songs." He was already getting up and walking toward his bag where his running shoes were. "By the way, have you seen Serena? I haven't seen her since lunch and her phone's dead."

"Haven't seen her," Maz replied as a smirk started to grow on his face. "Why? You two love birds gone too long without seeing each other?"

"No…" Liam muttered, suddenly becoming very interested in his running shoes as he tied them so Maz did not see the bright red color overcoming his face. "We just usually hang out a little bit before going to dinner…"

"I think Cher said something earlier about needing help with a history project after Serena's practice."

"Isn't Cher's friend Niall, like, the top in our grade in history? Why can't he help her?"

"Calm down, Liam, Serena's just helping out a friend. You two can't be joined at the hip _all_ the time."

Liam just shot Maz a glare, who in turn grinned and left, whistling as he left the room. Liam headed for the door with his water bottle in hand before stopping, looking back at his bed where the mobile phone was sitting right in the middle. He doubted anyone would call while he was out; Ruth or his dad usually called at about nine or ten at night to update him, even though there was not much to update lately. Then again, every few days Bonnie or Nicola would call at a random time if they were at the hospital or had nothing to do, just to see what was going on. He was probably going to Skype with Bonnie the following afternoon, so it did not really matter if he brought his phone with him…no one important would call or text him…

For a long time Liam stood there, staring back at his phone and having a silent debate with himself as his hand rested on the doorknob. Finally he turned the knob, tearing the door open and walking out of the room with his head a little bit higher than usual. Still, as he left, he could not help feeling as if something terribly wrong was about to happen.

* * *

Zayn was walking back to his dorm from the first dress rehearsal with Jess, who was texting someone on his mobile phone as they walked. Zayn was definitely not in the best mood, especially since he had messed up one of the dance moves during the dress rehearsal because of nerves and almost all the other actors had sent him the dirtiest looks he had ever received and shunned him for the rest of practice. Olive and Jess just rolled their eyes at the others, but they did not know what it felt like to have that happen to them, they did not know how mortifying it was. Even worse, Ellie, whom Zayn had come to develop a bit of a crush on over the past few weeks even though he would never admit it, had been one of the people who glared and ignored him.

"They all hate me now," Zayn muttered, kicking a small rock out of his way as they walked down the path leading to the dormitory.

"Is that a bad thing?" Jess asked, mimicking Olive's dry tone. "I would love it if they hated me. The school probably pays them to like me." Zayn sighed and Jess put his phone away. "Hey, don't worry about it. Just ignore them. I'm cooler than all of them anyway. Us school projects, we gotta stick together."

That managed to get Zayn to smile a little bit. "I guess, but…"

"But what? I mean, half of them messed up all their lines and dance moves, and you stepped left instead of right once. I'd bet any money none of them even know their lefts from their rights."

"I beg to differ."

Zayn and Jess both quickly looked over their shoulders to see Ellie was walking behind them with her arms crossed, looking none too happy to have just heard was Jess said. Jess shrugged off what she said before pulling out his phone again, becoming so interested in his messages that he appeared to not even realize Ellie was still walking behind them. Zayn tried not to look over his shoulder too much, but he was saved when Ellie stepped forward, right between Zayn and Jess so they had to separate. Ellie did not even hesitate before looking over Jess's shoulder, reading his text before he could pull his phone out of her sight.

"Maz?" Ellie asked, frowning. "You're still rooming with that kid? He hasn't kicked you out yet?"

"No," Jess replied shortly. "Could you please leave? Go on, hurry your little ass along and get out of sight."

Zayn threw Jess a quick glare before directing his attention back to Ellie. "I mean, you don't _have_ to leave," Zayn told her, checking himself and making sure he did not sound as if he was trying too hard. "Jess is just having one of his moments."

Ellie pursed her lips, glancing at Jess. "He seems to have a lot of those." She turned back to Zayn, smiling. "You did great in rehearsal today."

Zayn was caught by such surprised he just barely stuttered out a, "W-what? Thanks," before Jess gave him a warning look. "I thought you were one of the people mad at me for getting the dance move wrong."

"Oh my gosh, silly, I wasn't mad at you at all!" Ellie looked down at her feet for a second as they walked before looking back up at Zayn with an honest expression. "If you want me to tell you the truth…I was mad at the girl in ensemble that's usually next to you, Myra."

Zayn ignored Jess as he rolled his eyes overdramatically. "Why were you mad at Myra?"

Ellie bit her lip, and for a brief moment Zayn thought he had never seen anything cuter than that. "Because she's next to you a lot. I was kind of…jealous."

Zayn tried his best to conceal the smile now on his face, but Ellie had already run off to catch up with some girls she knew ahead on the path. When Zayn looked at Jess, he was surprised to see how furious he looked.

"That little…" Jess began, but thought better of it and just groaned. "I can't believe her. 'I was…jealous'. As if! Don't get involved with her, mate, I'm serious. She wasn't mad at Myra or anyone except you. She just flat out lied."

"She looked pretty honest to me," Zayn now said, starting to get heated up himself. "Just because she's your ex-girlfriend it doesn't mean-"

"It _does_ mean I know her. She's an actor for a reason! She can lie through her teeth and get away with it. She'll pretend to be mad at you, say she was mad at someone else or it was someone else that was mad at you, and get you to believe her. Then you feel guilty for blaming her for something she clearly didn't do, and you'll do things for her to make it up to her. Don't. Get. Involved."

"You still like her, that's your problem."

Jess shook his head. "I'm not the one with the problem."

Zayn and Jess walked the rest of the way in silence, Zayn following the directions Serena had given him in a text up to her boyfriend's dorm room where she was. Zayn and Serena had paired up to do a composition for English and they were going to the library that evening to start work on it before dinner since Serena would be busy all weekend with practice for cheerleading. Zayn felt a bit awkward as he knocked on the door to the dorm, unsure if Serena had told her boyfriend Liam that Zayn was coming, but a few seconds later Jess's roommate, Maz, answered the door. Zayn took an even more awkward step in as Serena, sitting on the floor with her back against Liam's leg as he sat on the bed, waved to him and smiled while she listened to something on her iPod.

"Hey, Zayn, I just need to finish listening to this song and then we can head over to the library," she said, pulling an ear bud out to speak to him.

Zayn nodded before glancing around the room, feeling extremely awkward and out of place. Maz and a boy Zayn knew was named Andy were gathered together at one of the desks, doing something on their laptop. Liam had his own laptop open on his lap and looked up for a second to smile at Zayn before turning his attention back to his screen. Suddenly, just as Serena was getting up, a long pinging sound came from the laptop as a mechanical voice that said "Call from Bonnie Payne" followed it.

"Bonnie!" Serena shrieked, leaning over and turning the laptop so Zayn had a full view of it from where he was standing. Liam shifted over to see the laptop screen, too, and Serena sat down next to him.

"Serena!" a girl who looked like Liam except with long blond, curly hair proclaimed as her face appeared on the screen. Her laptop must have had really good webcam quality because you could see her whole room, including in the background at her desk where a girl was sitting with her back to the screen.

"Hey, Bonnie!" Serena said happily.

"Hello, sister, so nice of you to acknowledge me," Liam said, even though he was smiling, too.

"Oh my gosh, I haven't seen you in ages!" Bonnie exclaimed to Serena, ignoring Liam. "How've you been? Are you visiting over Christmas holiday now that you and Liam are _finally_ dating?"

Serena just laughed. "Definitely. Hey, who's that in the back?"

"Anna. She's busy writing, as usual. By the time she's thirteen she'll have her first novel published."

"Hopefully!" the girl in the background shouted without turning around, and Zayn could not help but smile a little.

* * *

"This is ridiculous!" Cher shouted in exasperation as she sat down at the table between Buck and Niall, which made Niall feel as if he had missed a step going down the stairs. "How can our teacher expect us to finish something like this in one weekend?!"

"Finish what?" Buck asked, looking up from his eggs for a second.

"The project! I told you all about it last night!"

"Oh…I don't remember…"

Cher's eyes flashed angrily for a few moments before she got up from the table again, storming toward the door and throwing her whole breakfast away without taking one bite. Niall knew Cher was upset, especially if she had gone so far as to throw food away. If there was ever anyone who ate nearly as much as Niall Horan, it was Cher Lloyd.

"What'd I do?" Buck asked with his mouth full of hash. "Did I say something wrong?"

Niall looked at Buck for a second, wanting to shout at him, but then he just sighed pitifully and stood up. On his way toward the door he put his tray on the conveyor belt but beforehand piled some eggs and hash onto a large couple pieces of toast on a plate and carried it out with him. He would just bring the plate back after; no one would miss it all that much.

"Hey, Cher!" Niall called, jogging quickly to catch up with her outside the dining hall but not so quickly that the food was put in danger.

Cher looked over her shoulder, stopping when she saw it was Niall calling her and that he was carrying food. "I'm sorry for leaving so quickly," she said apologetically, taking a piece of toast and chewing a piece. "I shouldn't have done that."

"It's understandable. Come on, there's no point in eating standing up. Do you want to go back to our dorm? When Buck gets back I'll beat him up right in front of you, just to make you feel better."

Cher wiped a crumb off her mouth, smiling. "That sounds good."

Niall handed the plate off to Cher, who finished half of it by the time they got up to Niall's dorm. Cher sat on the bottom bunk as Niall pulled a chair over closer so he could take a piece of scrambled-egg-hash-toast for himself.

"If you want any help with your history project," Niall offered, "I can always help you out. I'm pretty good at history; I really like it."

"We all know that," Cher said. "You've got the top marks in that class."

Niall just shrugged, finishing off his piece of toast as Cher began her third. "I'm okay."

"…How bad would it be if I just dumped Buck right when he got back here?"

Niall tried to look taken off guard, but he had been expecting this for a couple weeks now. He knew already that Cher's friends, especially Serena, whom Niall talked to sometimes in science, did not like Buck much as Cher's boyfriend. "I guess if you said it nicely…"

Cher frowned. "What am I doing, asking you? Of course you're going to say that."

"Cher, what happened at the Halloween dance was a mistake. It would be a lie if I said I never liked you, but…I know for a fact Buck hasn't been great to you. He's a good guy, but his listening skills are…"

"Weak as hell."

"I was going for nonexistent…and once he starts training even more for lacrosse, he'll have even less time for you."

Cher frowned again, but she nodded in understanding, clearly having thought of this, too. "Was it really a mistake? When you kissed me?"

"Yeah. I mean, I was totally out of line. You're with Buck."

"I guess…I don't know, I found it kind of ironic, in a way. Just earlier that day we had been talking about the Greek gods, and one of the things we had talked about was Aphrodite and Ares…"

"I'm not really a big fan of Greek gods; I prefer the Roman ones."

"Fiiine, Venus and Mars."

Niall smiled, but it was a little bit forced. "Why do you ask, though?"

Cher shrugged as an attempt to look unconcerned. "No real reason, I suppose."

"Mhm, of course not."

"What could you possibly be suggesting, Mr. Horan?"

"You kissed me back, Cher bear, in case you forget."

"Cher bear? I like it."

"Me, too."

"It sounds like a teddy bear."

"Something to cuddle with."

Cher smiled, handing Niall the plate back. "You're a good guy, Niall. Take this back to the dining hall and then meet me in the library so you can help me get a good mark on this project."

* * *

"Are you sure you want to visit us?" Liam asked. "My family is going to suffocate you."

"I'll be fine," I responded with a laugh. "They love me already! I've visited tons before."

"Yeah, but…" Liam wrapped his arm around me so he was holding my left hand with his and pulled me back so I was leaning on his chest. "This is the first time you'll visit as my girlfriend."

"Now your mum definitely won't let me into your room."

"Um…" Liam looked at Andy sitting on his bed, who was now staring at Liam over his laptop. "Yeah, I'm sure she won't."

"Why the hesitation? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, sorry, I just got distracted for a moment."

I looked up at Liam, seeing the slightly frantic look on his face that was always accompanied with him lying. "Are you not telling me something?"

"No, no. It's nothing important. I'll tell you later."

There was a loud beeping noise from Liam's phone, and he quickly shut the alarm off, picking his running sneakers up off the ground as he got up. I gave him a kiss, something I could never do enough of, before he left the room to go to his individual practice with his coach. I was just reaching for my bag on the floor to pull out my phone when Andy called me over to watch a video he had found on his laptop.

"It's a dance this group did to 'Genie in a Bottle'," Andy told me as I sat next to him on the bed.

"Oh, I've already seen that one," I told him. "It was okay, but it wasn't really anything special."

"Oh, well, never mind, then. Hey, so, how happy is your dad now that you're with Liam?"

"Um…I don't really talk to him much about it."

"I had another talk with him the other day; he thinks it'll be good for you."

I scratched my eyebrow, tilting my head to the side. "So, uh, how many of these 'talks' have you have with my dad?"

"Only two this year. He usually calls me to the office or catches me on the way to the dining hall to talk. He does it to Maz, too, I think. I don't know why he does it. He probably thinks that the less trouble we get into, the less trouble you'll get into. Now that you're with Liam, he's probably thought you've turned into an angel or something."

"Why would he think that?"

"Oh, please, we all know Liam's the most sensible guy around. If anyone's going to influence you to behave, it's him."

"I don't even get into a lot of trouble! You get like two detentions around here and suddenly you're a 'bad girl'. Puh-lease, if the teachers caught half the girls around here during one of their 'extracurriculars' they would be furious. I doubt they knew closet blowjobs and dorm sex could even be considered extracurricular activities."

"I fully support those activities, though. There really isn't a problem with them."

I shook my head. "You're such a pig."

"If I recall correctly, you used to sometimes participate in those activities, too, especially last year."

I clenched my jaw, folding my arms and looking at Andy darkly as a warning. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Okay, Saint Serena, we'll go with that." Andy closed his laptop, getting up and putting it back on his desk. "Let me know if you ever want a reminder."

I stood up, too, facing him with my arms still crossed. "Classy, Andy, really."

"Shut up."

"Make me."

Andy stepped forward, grabbed the front of the waistband of the jeans I was wearing, and pulled me against him before putting a hand behind my neck to bring my face closer to his. It all happened so quickly that I barely even had time to register that he had kissed me before I pushed away from him angrily. He looked either on the verge of laughing or hitting something, but I was too scatterbrained at the moment to even think much about it.

"What the hell, Andy?!" I yelled at him.

"You told me to make you shut up," Andy said simply. "So I did."

"You can't just do stuff like that, especially since I'm with Liam now. What the hell has gotten into you? Are you on something?"

"Pft, you insult me with your suggestion that I would need drugs to act weird. I just am weird."

"Andy, seriously!"

"I was just joking around, Serena, calm down."

"I will not calm down! That was totally out of place! I can't believe you even just did that!"

Andy shrugged. "Then you might want to see a psychiatrist, because it clearly just happened."

I picked up my bag from the floor and swung it over my shoulder so fast I thought it would take out the lamp on Liam's nightstand. "You're impossible."

"I prefer to go by 'Kim Possible', just because it sounds cooler."

"Don't even talk to me!" I shouted at him before slamming the door to the dorm behind me.


	8. Chapter 7

_**Sorry it took so long to update!**_

* * *

"Who is this I spy with my little eye?" Ellie asked as she settled into the seat next to Zayn in the auditorium on the Friday afternoon before everyone left to go back home for the Christmas holiday.

"A whore similar to yourself?" Jess asked frankly as he grudgingly sat in the seat on the other side of Ellie, pretending to pay attention to Mr. Flanchez as he droned on with the introduction speech for their auditions for the winter term play.

Ellie pretended as if she had not heard Jess, nudging Zayn's shoulder and urging him to glance behind them, where he saw a boy from the football team, Louis Tomlinson, sitting a few rows back from everyone else. "Isn't he on the football team with Graham? He was captain, right? What's he doing here?"

"Maybe he likes theater…" Zayn suggested, but he quickly trailed off when he saw the look Ellie was giving him.

"What football player in their right mind likes theater?"

Zayn, who had played football at school every year up until he began attending St. Germaine's, felt extremely indignant. "Hey, I used to play, does that mean I'm a terrible actor?"

"No, of course not. Well, I mean, you could obviously get _far_ better, but-"

"Way to be a bitch," Jess cut her off, sending daggers at her with his eyes. "Why are you sitting here anyway? Your little coven is over down there, closer to the fiery depths of hell."

"Hey, chill, man," Zayn cautioned Jess, shaking his head. "She didn't mean it-"

"Hey, Louis, right?" a boy with light brown hair who was a year below Zayn asked as he approached the ex-football captain, who smiled up pleasantly at him.

"Yeah, that's me," Louis responded. "And you are…?"

"Walter Hanks. Do you want to sit down closer to the stage? Since you're new and all I thought I'd show you around."

Louis smiled even wider, looking somewhat relieved as he followed Walter down into the small group of people seated closer to the stage where Mr. Flanchez was, unsurprisingly, still talking. "Yeah, that'd be great, thanks."

"No one ever did that for me…" Zayn mumbled, sinking down a little bit lower into his seat as he remembered with some bit of a smile just how much better his audition for "Les Miserables" had been than Walter's, even though he still ended up in ensemble with most of the first and second years.

"Well, people are weird," Jess said simply. "That's why I choose not to deal with them too much. Walter's little brother just started here last year, too, so we've got both of them to deal with."

"Really?"

"Yeah, his name's William, but he goes by Will. Most annoying little thirteen year old prick I've ever seen."

"William Hanks is a perfectly sweet boy!" Ellie defended, suddenly entering into their conversation with the utmost subtlety. "Just because you wish you were more like him and his brother-"

Jess rolled his eyes before turning to glare at Ellie. "More like just because _you_ wish I was more like anyone else-"

"You have absolutely no idea how much I want to strangle you someti-"

"Sorry we can't all be perfect human beings like y-"

"Does it ever even cross your mind to have one ounce of respect for others or

self-restrai-"

"Tell me, does the mirror just shatter when you look at it because of all the ugliness inside you or-"

"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over your elephant sized ego, you annoying tw-"

"Jess and Ellie!" Mr. Flanchez suddenly boomed, causing everyone in the room to jump a little bit, especially those who had not been paying attention at all. "We had enough of your fighting last year! I warned you what would happen if I had to speak to you two again!"

"But-" Ellie began, her face now growing increasingly redder as she stared at Mr. Flanchez with saucer-sized eyes.

"She-" Jess sputtered, pointing at Ellie accusingly and then dropping his hand as he suddenly stood up with a heavy sigh. "It was my fault completely, Mr. Flanchez. I provoked her." He shrugged, looking extremely unconcerned and uninterested with the whole ordeal. "Before you even say it, I'll kick myself out. Good luck with the play, hope you all break a leg." Jess lowered his voice, turning to look at Zayn with an almost unnoticeable wink. "School projects can't last forever, right?"

A few people gave small grins as Jess walked out of the auditorium, whistling louder and louder the closer he got to the doors before pushing them open with a very dramatic sweeping motion. Zayn looked down at his sneakers to hide the smile on his face as the auditions officially began with Olive, whose audition was, as usual, met by loud applause from the back of the auditorium, and no one had to turn around to see who it was sitting up there. When Zayn was getting up to do his audition what seemed like only a few seconds later even though it had nearly been an hour, he thought he must have been a very unhealthy shade of red because Ellie had given him a quick hug and kiss on the cheek after her own audition and wished him luck before leaving. Even though it all went by in a bit of a blur, Zayn knew he had nailed it, he absolutely, positively knew it. He was so sure of it, in fact, that he immediately went searching for Graham, Ellie, and Jess in the cafeteria to tell them, quite breathlessly, that he felt as if he could sprint across the world at the moment.

"Glad it went well," Jess said more genuinely than Zayn was expecting, and Zayn put off his own feelings of success and happiness for a few moments so he could talk to Jess about what had happened in the auditorium.

"You aren't seriously out of the program, right?" Zayn asked Jess as Olive and Graham listened intently. "I mean, you can audition later, right? Or you can audition for the spring term play?"

Jess laughed dryly before putting the last bit of his sandwich in his mouth, taking his time chewing and swallowing it before going on. "It was just a matter of time before I was kicked out. Admin's been waiting for it for ages."

"You won't leave, right?"

"Oh, no, of course not. Some counselor will tell me to get into sports or another club, basically tell me not to screw it up this time, and they'll keep me around until I get into university so they can brag about how they changed a young troubled boy's life."

"They need to get a real troubled boy, first," Olive said, taking a thoughtful bite of one of her chips. "The only thing you have trouble with is keeping what's on your mind actually in your mind."

"And you're just a silent observer, aren't you?"

Olive shrugged, not taking the comment personally. "I have more restraint than you."

"Been having a nice chat with your cousin about my lack of restraint, have you?"

Olive was so confused that Jess and Zayn knew she seriously had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. "What did Ellie say?"

"Nothing, nothing. So, are you looking forward to the part of dear old Frenchie?"

"I don't think I'll-"

"If you don't get Frenchie, I'll kick someone's face in," Graham said through a mouthful of egg salad, and in a way it was quite sweet, Zayn supposed.

"Ellie will definitely get Rizzo," Olive said, deciding to change the subject as her cheeks began to get slightly pinker than usual. "Mr. Flanchez basically told her earlier that she already had the part in the bag."

"She had a really great audition," Zayn put in. "I really wouldn't be surprised if she got the part."

"Yeah, well, that would suit Zayn just fine," Jess said lightly, not grinning as he looked at Zayn. "You're a leading contender for Kenickie."

"Kenickie? But-"

"Yeah, he's right," Olive cut Zayn off, knowing that he was about to talk himself down. "I can't think of anyone else who would be up for the part besides you. There's no way you're ending up in ensemble again, not now that you've got experience and Mr. Flanchez has seen you."

Zayn shrugged this off even though a strangely warm feeling was now growing inside of him, and he seemed to smile a bit longer and laugh slightly louder than usual. Jess, also, seemed even happier than usual as he and Zayn walked back to the dorm so they could work on their maths homework. Maths was Zayn's least favorite subject and he chose to work on the homework with someone else whenever possible. When they were walking, Zayn passed Serena, who was looking extremely preoccupied, as she had for the past couple of days. "Hey, Serena, good luck at your competition tonight!" Zayn called to her, getting a quick smile and word of gratitude in return before she hurried on her way to the gym with her dance bag slung over her shoulder.

As the two boys were entering the common room, Jess flicked his hat off, spun, flipped his hat back on, and did a shuffling step to an unheard rhythm. Zayn paused, staring at Jess, who was bewildered about Zayn's expression of curiosity.

"You're a good dancer," Zayn remarked.

"So I've been told," Jess said with a small laugh. "My roommate Maz has taught me a few moves. What about it?"

"I'm not…I'm not exactly…I'm not a very good dancer," Zayn finally decided. "And if I do get the part of Kenickie, or any other part," Zayn quickly added, "even in ensemble, I'll need help with my dancing."

"Are you asking me to teach you how to dance?"

"If you'd be willing? I need all the help I can get."

"I mean…yeah, sure. I don't know if I'm really all that good, but I'll help as much as I can. I'll need something to do now, anyway. And don't worry, you won't need tights."

* * *

Harry had just settled into a seat on the couch in his common room when a body collapsed next to him, immediately slumping against his shoulder and burying their face into his neck. He was almost glad Molly could not see his face so that she would not see the stupid grin that spread across it because of her sudden appearance.

"What're you doing here?" Harry asked her quietly. "I thought you had practice until six."

"Coach let us out ten minutes early for some rest," Molly said tiredly, her eyes fluttering shut as she turned her head to look up at Harry. "I'd almost forgotten what that word meant. I really hope this all pays off…"

"It will. You'll win, you'll have a huge party back here to celebrate it, you'll get about two hours of sleep, and then you'll be up and out of here and back to Birmingham by sunset tomorrow."

Molly tried to smile but could not bring herself to. "I'm really going to miss you, Harry."

"I'm going to miss you, too," Harry admitted finally, having held that in for the past couple weeks as the reality of Molly and him being separated for more than a few days settled in completely. "But we'll text all the time and video chat and everything. We'll see each other again in no time."

"I know, but I'll still miss you."

Harry now shifted uncomfortably, biting his lip as he turned to face Molly. "I'm really going to miss you, too. As in really, really going to miss. I've been, um, meaning to ask you this for a while, and I know it's extremely, like, last minute, but I was think that maybe tonight, after the competition, I mean, erm, after you win, I thought maybe we could, like…"

"Harry, I want to wait a little longer."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief after realizing he did not have to say the words out loud, especially where some people were around and may overhear them. "Okay, that's great. I mean, I don't want to wait. I mean, erm, like, I do want to wait, but…"

Molly smiled sweetly, giving Harry a quick peck on the cheek, which just made him even more flustered than he already was. "I know. I just want to wait until after Christmas holiday. It'll give us more time to plan. Trust me, I don't want to wait, either."

Harry was just opening his mouth to say something when a frantic looking Serena ran into the room, looking around wildly until her eyes fell on Molly. Harry instinctively put an arm around Molly even though he did not know why Serena seemed so hysterical as she marched toward them. Serena did not even say her usual "Hullo, how are you, Styles?" to Harry whenever she saw him, but instead locked her eyes with Molly's, completely ignoring Harry.

"We need to talk," Serena said, her voice more pleading than stern. "As in we really, really, really need to talk."

"Why? What happened?" Molly asked, now sitting up straight, all traces of exhaustion and tiredness wiped away from her face.

"Liam wants me to visit his family over the Christmas break."

"I know, we already talked about this…"

"I thought you were excited to go," Harry put in, trying to become a part of the conversation so he would not feel so awkward watching it from the sidelines.

"I was, but…" Serena side-glanced at Harry purposefully, but Molly made no move to leave her spot.

"I'll probably tell him whatever you tell me, anyway," Molly told Serena truthfully, which just made Serena roll her eyes. "Hey, _we _have no secrets in our relationship."

Harry bit his lip from mentioning that Molly had kept her previous eating disorders secret from him for a very long time, and that it had not even been her who told him about it.

"That's the thing," Serena groaned, breaking Harry away from his thoughts so he was now paying attention to Serena again, "Liam and I have secrets. Well…Liam has no secrets, I don't think. He doesn't act like it. He's told me everything, all about what's going on with his mum and how it's effecting him and everything, but…" Serena looked around the room, eyeing the people their with untrusting eyes, including Harry. "You're sure you would tell him everything, anyway? No matter what I told you? So there's no point in trying to tell you when he's not around because he'll just hear it anyway?"

"Pretty much," Molly confessed, taking Harry's hand in her own to try to add emphasis to her words. "What's wrong, Serena? Are you saying you're keeping something from Liam?"

"About…about three weeks, something happened."

"You and Andy got into a fight, everyone knows that. You two haven't spoken since then. You said Liam was really upset that you two weren't getting along."

"And that just adds to my guilt. He's going through enough already. But…if I tell him what really happened…I don't know what he'll do…I mean, he just started getting back to his old self, focusing less on what his mum was going through and more on things that were important to him before…"

Molly nodded in understanding as Harry tried to keep up, not really sure what it is exactly that Liam Payne was going through because he had no classes with him and only knew things about him through what Serena or Molly had said. He definitely knew Liam's mum was in the hospital with some type of ailment, but he was unsure of the seriousness of it or the effect it was having on Liam. He thought he had heard Serena mention that Liam's spot on a reserve list for the Olympics was in jeopardy if he did not get his time back up to where it had been the previous year.

"Did something else happen when you got in the fight with Andy? Did he say something about Liam?" Molly asked Serena.

"No…it had nothing to do with Liam…" Serena said slowly, looking as unsure as ever as she tried to continue on, forming her words carefully. "Last year, Andy and I would sometimes, you know…fool around, I guess you could say. It was nothing serious, ever, and it was only a few times. A few weeks ago we got into a small argument, and it came up, and then…he kissed me."

"A few weeks ago?" Harry asked her. "When you were dating Liam?"

"Well considering Liam and I have been together for a month and a half now, I'd think we would have been dating a few weeks ago."

"Jeez, calm down, I was just clarifying."

"Ugh, I'm sorry, Harry, I'm just worked up. It's been eating away at me for weeks, and the only other person I've told is Cher, and I just feel so guilty whenever I'm with Liam now because I want to tell him. I mean, what if Andy tells him? What if Andy has told him and he's too kind to say anything? I'm such a bad person, I never should've let Andy do that. I'm so stupid! There's no way in hell I deserve Liam. I can't go visit his family and look at them with this on my shoulders, especially right now."

"Okay, Serena, just calm down," Molly said soothingly, putting a hand on Serena's shoulder as her breathing quickened with each word she had spoken. "You didn't do anything to make Andy kiss you, right? It was all your own doing?" Serena shook her head at the first question before nodding for the second. "So, you see? If you tell Liam, the only person he can get mad at is Andy. You care about Liam more than you've probably cared about any other guy before, anyone can see that. He's crazy about you, too. You just need to talk it out with him, and I'm sure this will all be fine."

"I don't want to ruin his friendship with Andy, though. I mean, Andy just lost one friend, I don't want to make him lose another, and Maz will probably be pretty angry, too, if he finds out."

"Things will work out in the end," Molly reassured her, settling back against Harry's shoulder now. "You're just really worked up because of the competition tonight, too. Now go, find Liam, relax, and then I'll see you at the gym when it's time. Everything will work out, Reen, don't worry."

"Don't call me Reen," Serena said so sharply that Harry snapped his head to look at her in shock.

"I've never heard anyone call you that before," Harry said when she looked at him.

"It's a stupid nickname people used in first and second year. No one really uses it anymore, because I don't like it."

"Andy gave it to her," Molly informed Harry quietly under her breath, but Serena still heard it.

"I really don't think it matters who came up with it, I don't like it and I would prefer that you didn't use it."

"Hey, fine by me, but we didn't mention anything about what you felt when Andy kissed you."

"Anger and frustration."

"Passion and lust, interesting…"

"This isn't a time to joke, Molly."

"I'm not joking. If you really didn't care about that kiss, something like a stupid nickname shouldn't put you so on edge."

"I'll see you at the gym," Serena said abruptly before getting up and leaving the common room as Molly sighed deeply.

"She'll thank me someday when she and Liam are married with five kids and Andy was the best man at their wedding," Molly told Harry in a murmuring voice. "That'll have given her the extra push to smooth things over with everyone, just to prove nothing was out of the ordinary and it didn't mean a thing. I know Serena well enough to know that's exactly what she'll do."

"Do you really think it didn't mean a thing?" Harry asked her curiously, wrapping his arms around hers and pulling her closer, well aware this was the last time he would be this close to her for weeks.

"With girls, there's no such thing as the phrase 'it doesn't mean a thing'."

* * *

Louis held the steaming travel mug full of hot chocolate in his bare, cold hands as the flames from the bonfire danced on his face when they swayed here and there in the wind. Across the roof, Francis, Darrell, and Eleanor were all walking out, bundled up in their jackets and scarves. Below them, over the edge of the roof, Louis could see a large amount of the student body walking toward the gymnasium to watch the cheerleading competition, which was why that night was the perfect night to have the bonfire they had been talking about for nearly a week.

The four of them huddled as close to the flames as they dared, rubbing their hands together and breathing on them so they could try to keep as warm as possible in the late evening, early night air. Louis reached out to put an arm around Eleanor's petite shoulders when he saw her give quite a violent shudder, followed by her teeth chattering noisily. Louis noted that this was the first time in days that he had seen Francis without a notebook or his iPad in his hands, making final notes and edits for the last edition of the newspaper before the holiday that had been printed that morning.

"So…" Darrell said, his voice shaking a bit as he rubbed his arms and took a cautious step forward, closer to the fire. "Another term, come to a close."

"Our last fall term," Eleanor mumbled, nodding her head sagely.

"My first and last one here," Louis pointed out. "It didn't turn out at all how I planned." He managed to form a smile with his slightly numb lips. "It was far better."

"Despite the fact that you were almost expelled?" Francis questioned, smirking. The smirk quickly faded from his face as a thought seemed to cross his mind. "We've only got a few more months here. Then it's off to uni for me."

"And me," Darrell agreed. "My parents don't want me to take a year off. They want me to go right into majoring in business somewhere. I've already got my picks narrowed down to about four."

"Five for me. My parents still disagree with the idea of going for a journalism major, but they also still don't want me to take a year off. What about you two?"

"I don't know," Louis admitted. "I haven't got a clue as to what I want to do with my life, to be honest. I don't know where I want to go at all. I've kind of looked at Brunel, and I've heard a lot of great things about County Cork. I don't know what I want to major in, anything of that sort. I was thinking about taking a year or two off. Kind of gaining my footing some more, earning a bit of money. I haven't really talked it over very much with my mum, but I think she would support the idea."

"I've already got a job lined up at the Hollister store where my cousin's a manager," Eleanor said. "I would love to go to school for politics or sociology or something along those lines. I think a year off would be a good idea, though. Get a few more life experiences in before uni."

"I think you two have more a plan in mind than you think," Francis remarked.

"Maybe you two can start going together and live together on your year off," Darrell joked, making them all laugh.

"I didn't hear you denying that idea," Louis teased Eleanor.

"I didn't hear you denying it either, Lou," Eleanor jibed right back. "By the way, how did your audition go for 'Grease'?"

"Pretty well, I think, since I haven't done an audition in a while."

"Think you'll get the lead?" Darrell asked, and Louis had to stop himself from laughing once he realized Darrell was being serious.

"Um, I don't really think I stand a chance for the lead. There were a lot of other great auditions, and there were still a few people after mine. This one bloke, Walter Hanks, really nice guy, dances really well. And this other lad, Zayn Malik, sings phenomenally. I thought I heard a few people say he was probably a sure bet for Kenickie…I don't know, they didn't seem happy about it. Maybe he's not a nice guy."

"He's friends with Olive," Francis said, pushing his glasses up on his nose a little bit. "He seems like a really nice guy. I've only talked to him once, though."

"I don't know, he was sitting back from the rest of the kids in theater, with some kid who got kicked out before auditions even started and a girl named Ellie that everyone said is going to get the part of Rizzo. She actually had a really good audition."

"Ellie," Eleanor said with a surprising amount of distaste. "I know who she is. She's a horrid, rude girl. She was absolutely awful to one of my best friends."

"Excuse me," Francis said, sounding extremely indignant now, "but that's my cousin you're talking about."

"Don't pretend as if you think she's an angel," Darrell muttered, seeming to remember something he would not have liked to remember. "You remember what happened when she was my girlfriend, right?"

"She just isn't very good at relationships, okay? That being said, she's family and I would appreciate it if you wouldn't talk about her this away, especially around me."

"Sorry," Louis mumbled, but Eleanor and Darrell did not give any sign that they were willing to apologize for anything they had said. "So, uh, after this dies down do you want to head over to the gym and watch the competition?"

"Sounds good," Darrell agreed.

"Yeah, sure," Francis said.

Eleanor did not verbally respond but just nodded as she shivered again, taking a small sidestep so she was pressed closer against Louis, who rubbed her arm a bit to try to warm her up. Simply because of that, being close to Eleanor on a cool night with the fire and themselves causing warmth, Louis was unable to tell anyone for the rest of his days that his first term at St. Germaine's Academy did not end on a good note.

* * *

To Liam, the word remission had never been so important. He felt as if he was on a cloud as he walked, hand in hand with Serena, toward the gymnasium where he would be watching Serena and the rest of the school's cheerleaders, including two of her best friends, Molly and Lauren, absolutely crush the opposing cheerleading squads. Just a couple hours before, while Serena was at practice, Liam had received a call not just from Ruth, but from Bonnie, Ruth, Nicole, his father, and, to his greatest pleasure, his mum.

"Are you nervous?" Liam asked Serena as they were entering the lobby of the gymnasium.

"A little," Serena admitted, and Liam knew she must be extremely nervous if she was admitting to it even in the slightest.

Liam looked around, making sure no one was watching, and pulled Serena into the custodial closet so quickly he was afraid she might get whiplash when she spun around as the door closed behind them. Liam reached up, flicking on the light above them with a huge grin on his face. The adorably confused look on Serena's face made Liam want to smile even more, but he was afraid that was not possible.

"So, I know you're really stressed and anxious right now, but I have something I need to talk to you about," Liam said in one breath.

Serena's face suddenly became much darker as she let out a small sigh, blinking a few times as she looked down at her feet. "I need to tell you something, too. It's been on my mind for a while…Um, you can go first, though."

"Blood count and under five percent."

"Excuse me, what?"

Liam was so excited that he knew he was being incoherent, but he did not care. "My mum's blood count is normal and there is under five percent of leukemia cells in her bone marrow."

"W-what? What does this mean?"

"She's in remission. Those are what they look for to see if the AML has been treated right, and it has been, and she's in remission, and she'll be home on Christmas, so she'll be there when you visit us for New Year's, and-"

"Babe, breathe!" Serena said suddenly, but there was now a huge smile that mirrored Liam's on her own face. "So, she's better? As in, far, far better?"

"Yes."

Serena nodded, biting her lower lip as she continued to smile, looking at Liam with bright eyes. "That's really all that matters, I guess. I can't wait to see her, see how she's doing. I can't wait to visit you. I mean, I'll barely even have time to miss you before I see you again, and now that you're mum's better…" Serena nodded again. "I'm so happy right now, I didn't think I would be."

"I don't think I've ever felt this way. I can't even think…All I can do is smile…I just…I can't even…"

"Has anyone seen Serena?" the two of them heard Lauren's voice shout from out in the lobby, and suddenly they were both snapped back to reality.

"Break a leg," Liam whispered against Serena's ear before giving her a kiss as he reached for the door handle. "You're gonna look great out there. And be great, of course, but mostly just looking great to me."

"Classy," Serena taunted before becoming more serious.

Liam opened the door so Serena could walk out into the lobby where Lauren and Molly were waiting, both giving Serena looks that were mixtures of surprise and teasing as they saw Liam behind her. "Oh, wait, didn't you want to tell me something?" Liam asked Serena, causing her to stop dead in her tracks.

"Uh, no, it's not important," Serena said, turning back to face Liam, looking slightly uneasy. Liam began to worry that now that she was back to facing the competition again, she was starting to become anxious. "This one's for your mum, Liam."

Liam put his handles in his pocket as he walked into the noisy and crowded gymnasium, whistling and smiling. He approached the second row of seats where Cher, Maz, and Andy were all sitting, looking just as anxious as Serena had. For a moment, when Buck walked by, Cher made sure that she was in conversation with Andy and Maz so she would not have to look at Buck. She had done this every time Buck came near her since they broke up a couple weeks before, much to the relief and happiness of all her friends, including Liam. He did not enjoy seeing his friends treated the way Cher had been treated by Buck; not one bit.

"Were you telling Serena about your mum?" Andy asked Liam as he sat down on the bleachers, reaching out to take a handful of popcorn from the bag in Cher's hand, which just made her glare at him.

"Yeah, I told her. She was so happy. I think it kind of distracted her for a little while, which was good."

"I guess…Did she tell you anything?"

"Nah, why?"

"Oh, no reason, I just thought she had told you something, too, that's all. We're all really glad to hear about your mum, though, Liam."

"Me, too."

"But…uh…listen, Liam, there's something I really need to tell you."

"Shhhh!" Liam hissed, raising a finger to his lips as the first team went out onto the mats to do their routine after the MC introduced them.

"I'll just tell you during the break, then."

"Okay," Liam nodded, but he was not really listening to what Andy was saying. At that point, at least.

* * *

I let out a breath, the kind of breath you let out when you do not even realize you have not breathed for the past three minutes you were absolutely working your ass off. I let out the breath as my muscles relaxed from the pose I was in and the MC herded the entire team off the mats so the judges could have their ten minute break to decide who had won the competition while we all sat in suspense. Normally my whole team was incredibly talkative, especially Serena, Molly, and I, but as we sat around the locker room, we were all silent, biting our nails and twirling our hair. Even our coach, who had turned into a bit of a monster lately, was sitting with her back straight as an arrow on the very edge of a chair set up near the door, taking care to flick a bit of lint off her pencil skirt with extreme precision.

"Good job, Serena," Lauren finally said quietly, but it was so silent in there that everyone heard and turned their head to stare at us. "You did really great."

"Thanks, you did fantastic, too," I said, now feeling our coach's eyes boring into us as if it was the worst thing we could possibly do to be talking at that moment.

The next eight minutes were agony for us, each minute seeming to take a lifetime to go by, until finally a man in slacks and a polo shirt with a fancy logo on it informed us that it was time for the awards to be given out. We all moved with a mixture of reluctance and expectation down the corridor, through the lobby, and into the gymnasium, where the judges were standing with smiles next to a table with three trophies on it. Each and every cheerleader in the room was looking at the first place trophy with a hungry tint in their eyes as they continued to walk closer. As my stomach continued to clench more and more with anxiety, I glanced out at the bleachers, praying that I would see Liam, knowing that would calm me down.

My stomach dropped entirely when I saw nothing but an empty space next to Cher, who was vigorously munching on her popcorn as she watched the whole ordeal intently. When she caught me looking, she winked at me and gave me a thumb's up, both gestures of which were quickly mimicked by Maz. Normally, I would not have been so concerned that Liam was not there. I understand perfectly well that at a time like this he could easily have gotten a phone call of some sort that would have caused him to leave, and that in itself would have made me nervous enough, but what worried me was who else was missing from the bleachers: Andy.

"Lauren, did you see Liam out in the lobby on our way in?" I asked her under our breath as the judges each began their own rambles about how great every team had been that night, about how hard it was to choose the top three.

"No, but I saw Andy leaving," Lauren responded just as quietly. "He seemed in a rush."

If I thought I was nervous about the competition before, it was nothing compared to the absolute fear and panic now taking over my entire body. "Did he seem like he was chasing someone?"

"Um…I don't know. Why? What's going on?"

"Nothing."

I ignored the judgmental look Molly was giving me, having heard our entire conversation. I squinted against the lights from above the bleachers to try to see around the entire gymnasium, looking to spot either Liam or Andy, hopefully with a smile so I would know that nothing had happened. Who knows? Maybe they were both just going to get something at the campus store to eat that was not available at the concession stands and had misjudged the timing, or something like that. A girl can dream, can't she?

I was so caught up searching for Liam or Andy that it took me a few seconds before I fully realized there was a gleaming, giant first-place trophy being shoved into my face as every member of the team screamed, "We won!" at a deafening decibel. I stared around at them, bewildered for a moment, before an unintentional grin spread across my face. I still could only think about finding Liam, but there was so much chaos, happiness, and excitement around me, about something I had been apart of, that I could not help but let go of my worries and fears for a few seconds. In those few seconds, I was suddenly lifted up into the air on the shoulders of the two tallest girls of the team as all the girls on my team cheered, my coach smiling for the first time in what seemed to be a month.

"What are you doing?" I yelled down to the girls.

"We won because of you!" Molly shouted back at me. "Didn't you hear their speech?"

"What?"

"They said, and I quote," Lauren began, clearing her throat slightly, "'The winning team showed incredible enthusiasm and talent. One particular young lady, probably most commonly known at the daughter of the headmaster of this school, showed some of the best skill and talent we have seen in a cheerleader her age in years.'"

"Th-they said that? It…it couldn't have been about me. It must have been a joke."

"Oh, shut up! Don't be so modest!"

"Hey, hey!" a voice yelled through the noise all around us, and the sound of that voice made my heart leap with joy as I saw the smiling face it belonged to break through the crowd. "Could you please set my girlfriend down so I could congratulate her? Thanks, ladies."

I had just barely set my feet on the ground when Liam had picked me up, spinning me around wildly as everyone formed a circle around us and began to cheer even more. I laughed, mostly from relief, as Liam put me down again. "Congratulations, babe," Liam said quietly, so only I could hear and no one else, before he kissed me for a good, long ten seconds. When he stepped away, still smiling, and looked down at me with so much pride and happiness with his arms still wrapped tightly around my waist, I could not remember ever feeling as if I was in a more right or safer place.

* * *

"Hey, Cher Bear!" Niall shouted as he jogged after her down the corridor in her dorm the next morning where she was helping her roommate Serena bring some bags out to Headmaster Higgin's car.

Cher giggled a little bit and stopped, turning to face Niall. "Hey, Nialler," she said with a smile. "I thought you were leaving earlier, to visit Mullingar before coming back to London."

"Change of plans. We're going to Mullingar tomorrow. I'm not leaving for a while. Do you want some help with that?" Before Cher could respond, Niall reached out to take her duffel bag from her and swing it over his shoulder, just barely missing Serena's face as she walked out of the dorm room.

"Whoa, watch it there, Horan," Serena said lightly with a small laugh. "Hey, I thought you were leaving early to visit Ireland?"

"Nope, not today. Congrats on winning the competition last night, by the way. It was amazing; you were incredible."

"The team really did do great," Serena agreed, nodding, clearly not understanding that the compliment was supposed to be directly solely at her.

"Um, Serena, I think that's the last bag. And remind me to pick up something at the bakery for your dad for bringing me to the train station."

"I'll go get him something now; you can pay me back later."

"No, I can go-"

"Stay," Serena said sternly, giving Cher a meaningful look as she walked down the hallway quickly. "Talk to lovely Mr. Horan."

Cher made a face Niall could not see because she was turned away from him before she faced him again. "I'll show you where to put that bag."

"So, excited to be heading back to Malvern?" Niall asked Cher, following her down the hallway and the stairs, through the lobby, and out to the front of the building where the headmaster's car was waiting with the trunk open.

"I guess you could say that," Cher responded, pointing to an open spot in the trunk where Niall set down the bag. "Are you looking forward to your first Christmas in London?"

"Eh, I don't know…We were going to maybe take a few trips around the country to see some more of it after we got back from Mullingar."

"Well, if your near Malvern, let me know."

"I think we were visiting Worcester, actually…"

"Really? Text me and let me know when you're going. We could meet up somewhere."

Niall scratched his nose, trying to hide the smile now spreading across his face. "Yeah, that would be fun. My parents might be there, though, so…"

"So? I'd love to meet your parents."

"You would?"

"Yeah, I love meeting my friends' parents."

Niall nodded, ignoring the small pang he felt when she had said friends. "Then, uh, I guess I'll text you in a few days."

Cher smiled, tossing her high ponytail over her shoulder lightly. "That'd be great."

Niall nodded again, smiling more. "Yeah, it would be great."

* * *

_**So what do you think of Zayn's dance lessons? Of Ellie? **_  
_**Harry and Molly's relationship? **_  
_**Elounor? **_  
_**Serena and Liam? Serena and Andy? **_  
_**Should Cher and Niall meet up in Worcester?**_  
_**Let me know what you think! xx**_


	9. Chapter 8

Niall's eyes fluttered open as he awoke from his two and a half hour nap, which he had fallen into just a few minutes after getting into the car at about eight that morning. It had been most unpleasant for him to have to wake up at seven o'clock that Friday so he would have enough time to eat and take a quick shower before stumbling out to the car in his groggy daze. He had fallen asleep to the sound of his mum raving about Croome Park, and he woke up to the same sound, now broken up occasionally by his dad giving a slightly more forceful "mhm" than before as he waited for Mrs. Horan to be quiet.

"Are you hungry, Niall?" Mrs. Horan asked, turning around in the passenger seat to look at her sleepy son.

"No," Niall said so sarcastically his mum just rolled her eyes at him and pointed toward a restaurant called Puccini's that was just ahead of them.

"I don't see why you're in such a bad mood," Mrs. Horan remarked quietly as they walked into the restaurant.

Niall just mumbled grumpily, checking his phone to find that during his name he had received a text from Cher, which made him both happier and grumpier since he had missed it. He quickly opened it, reading it through to discover that Cher would be able to meet up with him at about one o'clock, depending on where he was. Mrs. Horan and Mr. Horan were both glancing curiously at their son across the table as he stared at his phone with a huge grin on his face.

"What's got you so happy?" Mr. Horan asked.

"Um, what?" Niall asked, looking up instantly and picking up a menu, pretending to read it. "Erm…I just saw this hot chocolate. I'm a bit chilly, it might warm me up some." Mrs. Horan pursed her lips as she looked at him, unconvinced. Niall cleared his throat, quickly changing the subject. "Um, where will we be at one?"

"Well, Croome's Park opens at eleven today," Mr. Horan said, "and we shouldn't be too long there. Your mum knows enough about it already, she shouldn't need to go for a whole tour around the place."

"I wanted to stop at a place called The Hop Pocket this afternoon," Mrs. Horan said, shooting a quick glare at Mr. Horan. "It's a lovely craft and gift center, I've heard a bit about it. They have a café in there where you two could eat while I shop."

Mr. Horan and Niall exchanged a grin. "Sounds good to me," Niall told her.

"Why did you want to know?"

"Well, uh, a friend of mine lives just a little bit away and we thought we could meet up."

"Oh, really? I thought Buck lived in Richmond. That has to be nearly three hours away from here."

"Mum, I have more friends than Buck."

"Sorry, I thought he was the one you were closest to. Is it Graham from the football team?"

"No, he lives in Birmingham."

"Then who is it?"

Niall was really wishing at that moment that he had a drink in front of him that he could have slurped loudly to pretend as if he had not heard his mum's question. "Erm…Cher."

"Isn't that a girl's name?" Mr. Horan asked as Mrs. Horan's face brightened and she leaned forward with a smile.

"Who's Cher?" she asked excitedly.

"Buck's ex-girlfriend, so it would be nice if you didn't make a big deal out of it since we're just friends."

"Mhm, sure, that's fine by me. I just wanted to know who it was, that's all. Tell her to meet you at the Farmhouse Fayre Restaurant. I hear the cakes are good."

"Does she like to eat?" Mr. Horan asked.

"Yes," Niall replied a bit uncertainly, not sure at all what the point of the question was.

"She'll make a fine wife, Nialler."

Before Niall could reply, the waitress had brought out their drink orders, and the subject was changed after that to Mrs. Horan's itinerary for the day. The Horans took their time eating at Puccini's before driving to Croome Park, where Mrs. Horan was in all her glory going on tours and learning even more about the place. Niall was antsy the whole time, constantly checking his watch until it was nearly twelve-thirty when he finally got his mum back out to the car so they could start the forty-five minute drive to The Hop Pocket.

Niall was just running into the restaurant when he crashed right into a petite girl walking in a few feet in front of him. "Niall!" Cher squeaked in surprise, spinning around with a nervous laugh and a smile. "I didn't see you there."

"Same," Niall responded. "Sorry we're late, but-"

"You aren't late at all," Cher responded lightly. "I just got here anyway. Do you want to sit down? Are your parents here?"

"I think they're doing some shopping before they're going to eat."

Cher nodded before leading Niall over to an empty table farther to the back of the restaurant, one that only had two seats at it. "So, how was Christmas in Mullingar?"

"Wet."

"Rain the whole time?"

"Of course, what else would be expected?" Niall laughed, mostly because Cher was laughing.

"But, yeah, it was nice to see my family aga-"

Niall was interrupted when there was a loud crash just behind them as the handle gave out on a guitar case someone was carrying with them and the entire thing fell to the ground. The case sprung open as it hit the ground, but besides that there was no damage, even though the man the guitar belonged to seemed extremely enraged by the whole ordeal. When he caught Niall looking, he started in on him.

"Do you see this Goddamn guitar?!" the man shouted. "It's freaking cursed, okay?! I tried to sell it and I just spend nearly forty pounds on this nice case even though it look like shit so I could sell it for a good amount of money and now it goes and breaks on me! I see you looking at it!" The man gave the guitar case a good shove with his foot so it skidded across the floor, stopping at the legs of Niall's chair. "I hope you have fun with it! Damn kid, staring at me like I'm bonkers. I hope it curses you, too!"

With that, the man stormed out of the restaurant after slamming a meager tip on the table, all the waitresses staring after him in shock. Niall stared, too, for a few moments, but then his attention was taken with the open guitar case lying at his feet. He picked up the guitar carefully, examining its every inch and determining that it was in fairly good condition, unable to see how it could possibly be "cursed". He plucked tentatively at the strings before adjusting his hold on the guitar and beginning to play the opening chords of the first song that popped into his head that he knew how to play. After he had played a couple chords, he was suddenly met with the sound of a clear, beautiful voice reaching his ears from the other side of the small table.

"_If this world is wearing thin,_

_And you're thinking of escape,_

_I'll go anywhere with you,_

_Just wrap me up in chains,_

_But if you try to go alone,_

_Don't think I'll understand,_

_Stay with me,_

_Stay with me,_

_In the silence of you room,_

_In the darkness of your dreams,_

_You must only think of me,_

_There can be no in between,_

_When your pride is on the floor,_

_I'll make you beg for me,_

_Stay with me,_

_Stay with me" _

Niall finished the song, his mouth still slightly open with shock as he stared at Cher, completely awestruck. Cher giggled a small bit when she saw Niall staring at her so incredulously but besides that gave no hint that she realized how great she had just been. As Niall looked around he found that all eyes in the restaurant were transfixed on them, lips connected to those eyes with their smiles. Niall turned his attention back to Cher, finding her critically examining the menu with a look of extreme concentration.

"Has anyone ever told you how good you are?" Niall asked her quietly, not wanting anyone else in the restaurant to hear what he had to say.

"I guess a few people. Hey, do you want to split a cake? I think I'd much rather get one just for myself."

"But-…wait, you could eat a whole cake by yourself?"

"Pft, yes. Hey, do you want to go look around the shop after? I saw some of the stuff on the way in and it looked kind of cool."

"Um, yeah, sure, but-"

"Oh! This cake looks great!"

* * *

"I'm still mad about the lack of cake I was sent," Harry said lightly to Martin as they fell onto his couch to watch the X Factor.

"Yeah, that plan kind of failed," Martin agreed. "But, man, you have to see who replaced you at the bakery. She's hot, Harry."

"I'm no longer on the market."

"But she's just your type!"

Harry shot Martin a look even though he knew his friend was only joking. "Molly is my type, too, and I really care about her. A lot."

"Hey, I was just kidding. I know you care about her. A lot. Which is why…"

"Keep your mouth shut, Martin!" Anne shouted from the kitchen, causing both boys to jump.

"She can hear us?" Martin asked under his breath.

"I had no idea," Harry replied just as quietly as the two boys exchanged a short look of fright before Martin shouted back to Harry's mum.

"Why not?!"

"Quit whining, he'll know soon enough! Any minute now actually!"

"What?" Harry asked louder now. "What's going on?"

"You'll see," Martin and Anne said at the same time as Harry watched Martin smirk widely.

"No, seriously, tell me what's going o-"

Harry was cut off by the sound of someone knocking loudly on the door, annoying Harry to the extreme. He picked himself up off the couch grudgingly to walk to the door so he could open it. When he did, he found the most beautiful, vibrant face he had ever seen staring back at him from his front step where ice that had formed earlier in the week still remained. It took Harry a few seconds to register that Molly was actually standing in front of him before rushing forward, gathering her into a nearly bone-crushing hug as Anne and Martin laughed from the living room behind. When he turned, Molly's cold, small body still in his arms, he found them both smiling brightly.

"You think we were going to let you go this long without seeing her?" Martin asked. "We decided it was better that the money go toward this than a cake"

"She's staying for four days," Anne informed Harry. "And you're sleeping at opposite ends of the house."

Harry could not do anything but nod and agree because his face was locked in a smile. He tried to think back, but he could not quite remember ever having felt a happiness as great as the one he felt at that moment, there with Molly.

* * *

Zayn had barely stepped into his house after returning from his cousins' when his mum asked him to take over stirring the pasta on the stove while she helped his sister with her costume. Zayn sighed but reluctantly took the thin wooden spoon from his mum as she rushed out of the room to help his little sister, who was complaining about her angel costume being too itchy from her room. Zayn stirred the contents of the pot a few times awkwardly before casting an eye around the kitchen, which was still gleaming from when they had cleaned the whole house the day before Christmas, hoping to find something to distract him.

"Thanks, Zayn," Mrs. Malik said absently as she took the spoon back from Zayn. "It was about time you learned to make pasta."

Zayn opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it when he saw the circles under his mum's eyes and instead turned on his heels to go to his room. Once he closed the door, he was finally able to drown out the sound of his sister's complaints, which seemed to get louder with each passing minute the closer they got to the time they had to leave so she could get to her Winter Recital. Zayn had managed to get out of going to the recital by saying that he had a lot of homework to do, which was actually very true (especially since Mr. Moriarty had given him an extra credit essay to do over the break), but he did not actually plan on doing any of it that night.

Zayn walked over to his desk, opening his laptop to find that just a few seconds earlier Jess had started trying to video call him on Skype. He answered the call, running his fingers through his hair as his eyes began to droop a little bit from the lack of sleep he had gotten the night before.

"Good morning, sunshine, don't you look fresh?" Jess said as he twisted his hat around on his head and leaned back in his chair, smirking. "Late night?"

"Yes," Zayn automatically responded, and Jess made a remark before he could rush to take it back.

"I didn't know Ellie had visited you."

"Shut up."

"She always did like it a bit rough."

"Seriously, Jess, I'm not in the mood!"

Jess shrugged indifferently, laughing casually to himself. "Aw, I was just kidding. Hey, I just wanted to know when you wanted to start those dance class things? I know callbacks for the play are going to be posted in a few days."

Zayn tried to remember what day specifically the callbacks list was going to be posted, but he could not even remember being told an approximate date. "Who told you that?"

"So, it's not going to be a daily thing, is it? I mean, I already have enough other things keeping me from doing my homework, but I'm sure I can squeeze in one more."

"No, not daily. Um…" Zayn tried to think of how often he would want to meet with Jess to work on dancing, but he was drawing up a blank and was considering that maybe daily lessons would be the only way for him to make any significant improvements. "We'll just see if I get a callback for any parts and go from there."

Jess let out a small breath, glancing down at his phone in his hand. "Uhhh…that's the other thing I needed to speak to you about."

"What is?"

"Mr. Flanchez called me the day after we left school."

"Why?"

"He wants me to be in the play. He said that considering my 'circumstances' at the school, I would get another chance."

"I'm sure it was all about 'circumstances' and had nothing to do with the fact that you're one of the best there."

"I'm far from it. But, um, the thing is, he's giving me a callback without an audition."

"For what part?"

"Kenickie."

Zayn nodded, now understanding Jess's reluctance to explain this all to him. "That's great, Jess, really."

"No, it's not. I know you want that part. You need that part, it's the only way you're going to get any respect around there. You care more about what they think of you than I do. Mr. Flanchez also told me that you also got a callback for Kenickie, you were the only other one. We have to audition again with scenes with characters that have already been chosen."

"Which would be…?"

"Louis Tomlinson was the only person who got a callback for Danny, and Walter was the only person who got a callback for Scorpion. For our audition Mr. Flanchez wants us to do one acting scene and one musical number, so the acting scene will be done with Louis or Walter. It doesn't have to be from Grease, either, but one of our choice. Something about 'displaying our abilities best' and shit. Same goes for the musical number."

"We have to do a musical number with Walter or Louis?"

"Um, no, for that one we don't get a choice. You're actually quite going to like this, since we have to do the musical number with the person playing Rizzo."

Even in his tired state, Zayn still had a very good idea as to who the person portraying Rizzo would be. "And that person is?"

"Ellie."

Zayn conveniently felt an itch on his nose right at that moment so his hand just happened to cover the small smile on his lips as he scratched his nose. "Well…that's good."

"Oh, shut up, I know you want to do much more than a musical number with her. I don't know _why_, but I know you do. There's gotta be some weird ass stuff going on up that head of yours, Malik."

"I just think she's pretty! Very, very pretty…"

"Yeah, of course, that's it. So, when do you want the dance lesson things?"

"Wouldn't that be a conflict of interest now?"

"Nah, I want you to get the part. If I help you improve your dancing, you have an even better chance that you currently have of getting the part."

"Why don't you want it?"

"You think I could survive playing Kenickie when Ellie's playing Rizzo? We'd murder each other on stage by the end of Scene One, and that'd be on a good day. Besides, I was really only in it for the leather jacket."

"It wouldn't be that bad."

"Huh, please. It was absolute hell last time we played roles opposite each other."

"Why? What happened?"

"We ended up dating."

* * *

Louis walked and jogged around the edge of the football field, over exaggerating the movement of his arms to warm himself up quicker. All across the field lay a crystallized remnant of the morning dew, but it was actually nearly afternoon and most of it had somehow melted in the cold temperatures that New Year's Day had brought with it. The warm feelings of Christmas that had been brought on by the taste of peppermint hot chocolate and the feeling of new flannel pajamas was long gone already as the approaching term loomed just over Louis's head as if it were a dark storm cloud waiting to downpour.

Louis dribbled the football out to a few meters back from the goal before taking a few warm up kicks, right into the net. Even though he tried desperate to convince himself that he was distracted, the truth was that he could think of nothing but what would happen when he went back to school. Would he be able to get away with as much as he had last term, less, more? Now that it was winter, students would be more irritable than ever and most likely far more willing to snitch on Louis than they had in the previous fall term.

The next shot Louis took, he missed, and he nearly drilled a hole into the net with the shot he took after that. He wished he could have used his skills to help the team win their championship, but it was his own fault and no one else's that he had been stripped of his captaincy and kicked off the team. As he thought back on it, he was lucky that by the end of the last term he had not been expelled or even suspended. He knew full well that the only reason for that was because his uncle was the headmaster and that gave him more leeway than pretty much any other student at St. Germaine's, except maybe Serena.

As Louis was dribbling the ball back from the net, he stopped, thinking. He had no idea where he wanted to go to university, what he wanted to do with his life, or anything of that sort. Nearly everyone else he knew had some sort of plan for their future, but here he was, still believing he could spend all his time joking and having a good time of life when the fact of the matter was that he could not. Here Louis had been, sitting around, waiting for someone else to come in and tell him what he was good at, what he should do, where he should go to university, et cetera. At that moment, it finally settled in for Louis that it was not up to anyone else but him to decide what it was that he wanted to do with his future, and it settled in even more that he had no clue what he could even consider.

Louis kicked the ball as hard as he could into the net, displaying the usual destructive and slightly violent sign of one who has just officially grown out of their childhood mentality of dependence on others for decision-making. The term had not even started yet, but Louis could already feel the stress of grades, drama, and life taking a toll on him. Up until that moment, he had not even considered if it would be a bad thing if he was chosen to play Danny. Even then, however, he could not fully get himself to think of getting the lead role in the play as being anything but an amazing opportunity. He knew almost better than anyone that he had absolutely nailed his audition, and that knowledge brought a small smile to his face as he jogged to the net to collect his ball again.

"You aren't cold yet?" Jo's voice called halfway across the field as she walked toward her son, rubbing her mittens together to warm herself as she continued to breath visibly. "You've got barely anything! It's nearly twenty degrees, Louis!"

"I'm going home now," Louis told her, running over to his bag and pulling his large winter coat on over his polar fleece that he was wearing over a thermal shirt. "I just needed to think."

"And you couldn't do that in the house, where there's heat I pay for?"

"I think better out here."

"Funny, I've never heard of a man able to think when his balls were frozen."

"I meant when I'm active."

"You've certainly always been active. Speaking of being active, you and this Eleanor girl…"

"Mom, it's nearly twenty degrees, we need to get home before my balls really do freeze."

"Oh, no, no, no, I want to stay here and hear _all about_ this lovely Miss Calder!"

"I never even told you here na-…Did you Facebook stalk her?"

Jo made sure not to make eye contact with Louis as they began to walk back toward the street. "Maybe…"

"What mom even does that?!"

Jo shrugged her shoulders with an air of self-righteousness. "Ain't no momma like a Tommo momma."

* * *

Liam had just finished his workout, already starting on his resolution to take a few more seconds off of his time, when his mum walked into the basement with a laundry basket full of unfolded clothes in it. She wrinkled up her nose with a smile as she looked at Liam.

"Someone needs a shower," she said bluntly before plopping the laundry basket on the couch to begin the folding.

"Here, Mum, I'll do that," Liam said, walking toward the couch.

"No, no, you go take a shower! I just washed these clothes. Besides, the best thing for me to do is just get back into my old habits. Besides telling you to rid yourself of that awful smell before your lovely girlfriend gets here, it also involves folding laundry."

"But you always asked us to help you with the laundry before."

"And none of you ever did. Well, except Bonnie, but she has a strange fascination with laundry. Reggie says she always gets so upset when she gets food on her shirt at lunch."

"Reggie? Who's Reggie?"

Mrs. Payne waved her hand dismissively toward Liam. "It's unimportant. Shower! Serena will be here in under and hour and you haven't even cleaned your room! Wait, no, leave your room messy. She won't be going there anyway."

"Please, we won't do anything."

"Mhm, yeah, sure."

"Mum, you know Serena!"

"Yes, but it's not Serena I need to worry about. You are, after all, a teenage boy. If Reggie can't even be in Bonnie's room, Serena definitely cannot be in your room, especially alone."

"Who is this Reggie?!"

"My boyfriend!" Bonnie called casually as she sauntered down the stairs with her best friend, Anna Holmes, right behind her. "Speaking of which, when is Serena getting here? I haven't seen her in forevs!"

"An hour," Mrs. Payne responded before Liam could go into some kind of lecture about how Bonnie was far too young for a boyfriend, especially one with a sketchy name such as Reggie. "_Which is why Liam needs to shower_."

"I'm going, I'm going!"

Liam ran up the stairs to take a quick shower before tidying up his room a bit. That morning when he had woken up, it seemed as if time was passing at half-speed and as if Serena would never be there. Now, he felt as if he had a million things to do in the five minutes before she was set to arrive at his door to stay the next couple nights with his family. He had just finished making his bed when he heard the distinctive sound of a car door slamming outside his house. In a second he was out the door, down the stairs, and flinging open the door to find his girlfriend already standing there with a huge smile, waiting for him. He crushed her in a hug and had to resist every urge to kiss her as Mr. Higgins walked up the path to his house to greet him with a handshake. Serena adjusted her bag on her shoulder awkwardly as she looked between Liam and her dad, both of whom were looking at the other with looks of uncertainty.

"Paul!" Mrs. Payne exclaimed when she arrived at the open door. "It's been so long since I've seen you! And Serena! Oh, darling, you've grown so much. It can't have only been a year since I last saw you."

"Mrs. Payne, how are you?" Serena asked, stepping forward and hugging Liam's mum as she and her dad were let into the house. "I brought some cookies, by the way." Serena handed a tin of homemade cookies to Mrs. Payne carefully, as if she was afraid any wrong move would cause something terrible to happen. "Thank you so much for having me, really."

"It's my pleasure, Serena! You have no idea how excited I was when I found out you and Liam were finally going together!" Liam felt his face quickly growing hotter as his mum continued to gush, and he instantly regretted telling her so much about his relationship with Serena. "It was bound to happen eventually; you two were too good together. I can give credit to you two for half my recovery, that's how happy I was about it."

Liam thought his face might just burn off as he looked over at the slightly uncomfortable, almost guilty, expression on Serena's face as she heard this last statement. She managed a weak smile, but Liam, knowing Serena as well as anyone, as far as he knew, decided that now was most likely the best time to get Serena away from his mum so she had some time to unwind before she was peppered with his mum's love.

"Um, Mum," Liam cut in before his mum could continue. "I should probably show Serena where she'll be staying. I'm sure Mr. Higgins wants to go over some things with you."

"Yes, I do," Mr. Higgins said in his voice that he usually saved for dealing with business within school. "If you have a few minutes?"

"Oh, I have all the time in the world! Oi, Bonnie, there you are. Come say hi to Serena and Mr. Higgins and then you can help Serena get settled in Nicola's room."

"Or I can-" Liam began, but he was cut off by the shrill voices of his sister and girlfriend as they hugged and greeted each other. "Okay, I guess Bonnie can help us…"

Liam took Serena's hand in his, leading her up the stairs to the hallway that led to Nicola's old room at the end. Bonnie and her friend Anna had been trailing behind them the whole way until they got to the room. Liam stood in the corner as Serena put her things down, waiting for Bonnie to leave, but she never did. Even after making a big deal of clearing his throat, Bonnie and Anna gave no notice of him and were pouring over a magazine Serena had brought Bonnie.

"Serena, do you maybe want to go for a wal-"

Liam had to keep his groan to a minimum volume when he was interrupted by Serena's phone blaring from her pocket. She gave him an extremely apologetic look that, admittedly, melted his heart a bit as she picked up the phone. "Uh, Zayn? Hi. Yeah, I'm at Liam's. Can we Skype in a couple days? I really need help on that paper for English." Liam, who distracted himself from getting jealous at the idea that Serena was video-chatting with other guys by focusing on a small crack in the wall, would have offered his own mind to help Serena with her English essay if he was better with spelling.

"Anna's a great writer," Bonnie said after glancing at her brother, causing Anna to get a bit pink. "She can help you!"

"Really?" Serena asked hopefully, looking at Anna. "I'm so awful at English."

"Don't you have one of the highest marks in the grade in English?" Liam asked Serena, always getting slightly annoyed with her whenever she put herself down on things such as her marks, which he knew were excellent.

"Meh. What were you saying before, babe?"

"I was going to ask if you wanted to go for a walk."

"Yeah, sure, I just need to sort out a few things."

They both stood there, looking at each other and then at Bonnie and Anna every now and then, for a few minutes before Liam finally decided to break the silence.

"Bonnie, could you and Anna maybe give us some alone time?" Liam asked his sister as nicely as he possibly could while resisting the urge to push her out of the room.

"Mum said not to leave you two alone," Bonnie replied bluntly, causing Anna to roll her eyes.

"We just want to talk," Serena assured her. "Nothing's going to happen."

"Mhm, of course not."

Bonnie cast a mockingly disapprovingly look between Serena and Liam before reluctantly leaving the room. No sooner had she stepped foot out of the room than Liam had crossed the room to pick Serena up and kiss her for the first time in what seemed like years, closing the door on the way.

* * *

I had just settled onto the couch next to Liam, my hand in his, when the doorbell rang. I was surprised as all get out when Liam jumped up excitedly, looking as if he was expecting something as he walked toward the door.

"Um, Li?" I asked a bit uncertainly. "Why do you look so happy to answer the door?"

"It's Andy," Liam responded. "Didn't I tell you he was staying here for a couple days, too? Whoops, must have slipped my mind."

The last thing he said sounded ironic to my ears, but I was sure he was being sincere; there was no way he knew. I watched apprehensively as Liam flung open the door, smiling broadly at Andy who was doing an awful good job of faking a grin back, trying his best not to glance behind Liam at me as I walked toward them. Liam would have been able to notice the way Andy's smile did not reach his eyes if he was not in such a state of excitement.

"Where's your mum?" Andy asked Liam, still making sure not to look at me.

"She just went out to the store to get some things for dinner. She'll be back soon, though. She's in a right good mood, with Serena being here and all."

"I'll change that in a heartbeat. Oi, Serena, almost didn't see you there."

"Couldn't miss you, Andy."

"'Course not. My flawlessness radiates." He turned his attention purposefully back to Liam. "Where can I put my bags?"

"You'll be in my room," Liam informed Andy. "You can go put your stuff down there." Liam looked at me slightly awkwardly and apologetically. "How much would you hate me if I asked you to stay here because my dad would be able to see if you were in my room from his?"

I smiled at him, laughing a bit. "I need to go send my mum a message anyway. You just get Andy all settled and come get me when you're done."

Liam kissed me as if this was the greatest news he had ever heard, which really, trust me, I was not against, before he traipsed up the stairs with Andy behind him. Even though I did not, in fact, have to send my mum a message of any kind I still went to Nicola's room to busy myself by taking out some of my clothes from my bag to fold and refold them. I must have been about to refold my jeans for about the fifth time when I heard a light, gentle knock on the door, signaling that Liam was in the doorway behind me.

"Come in, babe," I said to him, putting my jeans back in my bag before turning around. "Oh, Andy, hey. Sorry, I thought you were-"

"Liam," Andy finished for me, raising an eyebrow. "Look, Serena, I just came to apologize, okay? I think it would be best if we were on good terms while we're both here. I think Liam's getting suspicious."

"I really have no idea what he would need to be suspicious of. He knows we got in a fight."

"I think he's starting to catch onto the idea of what it was about."

"_I_ don't even know what it was about. Where is Liam anyway?"

"Helping his dad with a cable problem on the telly in the lounge."

I pinched the bridge of my nose for a few moments before looking back at Andy, whose face was giving away nothing. "I don't know if I forgive you, Andy. I just know that you broke your trust with me, and with Liam, and I don't know if something like a half-ass apology is going to cut it."

"I think it should."

"Are you even hearing yourself?"

"Yes, I'm hearing myself trying my best."

"Trying your best, eh?"

"Yes. Sorry that I don't know how to give anything but a half-ass apology. Sorry I speak my mind. Sorry I want to make things easier for Liam since he's gone through enough already. Sorry I just want you back in my life. Sorry I'm not Liam!"

"Lower your voice," I hissed at him even though I was certain Liam had not heard that at all down in the lounge. "I just need some time to let you back in."

"Fair enough." Andy began walking toward the door, but I called after him to stop him.

"Why now? Why the sudden effort now?" I knew Andy well enough to know this did not just have something to do with making things easier for Liam or any form of pleading Liam had done to try to get us to patch things up. Liam, along with Maz and Cher, had all been trying for weeks to figure out what the fight had been about and get Andy and me to talk to each other again. I knew Liam just so happening to have Andy and me visit on the same days was no coincidence.

"You know Ellie?"

"Yeah, she's in theatre, right?"

"Yeah. Uh, well, she lives in Wolverhampton, and we started hanging out a bit before break, and during break, and, um…"

"You two are together?"

"Yes."

I could not help myself. "You've heard about her reputation, right?"

"She won't treat me like her past boyfriends."

"The only one she didn't bend out of shape was that Jess kid and everyone thought a miracle had happened."

"People change, Reen, I thought you'd know that."


End file.
